Good news for Verstappen: Red Bull knows what to change overnight in Brazil
Photo: Race Pictures
Kada Sárközi joined GPblog as an editor ahead of the 2023 Formula 1 season. He graduated with a BA in Sports Journalism in the UK and has covered Grands Prix and other F1 events live.
Red Bull Racing's Head of Race Strategy, Hannah Schmitz, was positive after the first day of racing at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
During the first two free practice sessions at the Interlagos circuit, Red Bull Racing followed a similar programme to Ferrari. Schmitz explained that this has become an unexpected trend in recent weeks.
She said: "Exactly. Which has maybe been a little bit of a trend maybe recently that we've done similar things to Ferrari. I think it was a very close call on which sessions you run the hard and which session you run the medium today.
"I think all of the top teams kind of tested all three compounds because they are so similar and it comes down a lot to kind of driver preference, team tendency and preference, and those are the kind of things we're trying to get to the bottom of. Today, obviously, the conditions today are quite different to what's forecast for Sunday as well. So now we've got to try and kind of, yeah, have a look at how we think that's going to translate to what happens on Sunday, and I think that's the difficult thing."
Red Bull knows where to improve
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After the session, Verstappen also discussed where he needs his car to be better. According to Schmitz, knowing what to address after the first day is very helpful, and they can see the potential the RB22 has.
Photo: Race Pictures
"I think everyone agrees that there's a lot of potential within the car, but with both drivers, there are things that they want to look into and change overnight. But in a way, that's a good thing because that means we know what's happening on the car and what we can address, and there's a lot of potential and optimism for the rest of the weekend."
Moreover, Verstappen already left his car with still a couple of minutes left to go during FP2. Schmitz explained that the Dutchman's session did not end early because of a technical problem.
She concluded: "So it was just finding a lot of inconsistency in the long run, and we didn't feel like it was helpful anymore. We weren't getting the data we needed. We knew the things that we wanted to be looking at and changing overnight, so we just went straight into that."
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