F1 Tech | How Red Bull turned the car around to get Verstappen a P2

Starting from the solid McLaren, the team did a stellar job since FP1: Norris seemed very comfortable in the car during both FP1 and FP2, with a couple of tenths of advantage over his rival, Oscar Piastri. The MCL39 well well-suited to this track, which requires great downforce and stability, as well as the need to keep tyre temperatures under control, all aspects where McLaren excels.

As a consequence, both drivers demonstrated to be extremely quick through all three sectors, with a bigger gap in the first and third sectors, due to the ability to go through medium/high speed corners with a higher speed than competitors, thanks to the higher downforce generated from the Venturi channels. The team also brought a new rear wing spec this weekend, already analysed in a dedicated analysis, which mainly aimed at improving the top speed on medium/high downforce layouts, while still providing good stability and balance through slower and twisty sections.

The result of all these technical choices was McLaren’s dominance from FP1 to the last lap of the race: after Norris topped all three practice sessions, Piastri was able to get the pole with just 0.012 seconds of advantage on his teammate. An interesting data is the fact that Piastri and Norris were the only two drivers able to beat the lap record set by Max Verstappen in 2021, proving once again their car’s superiority over the rest of the field.

The scenario during the race didn’t change either: after a strong start by Max Verstappen, which allowed him to pass Norris, the British driver got his second place back on lap 9, as the Dutchman was starting to struggle with his soft tyres. From that moment onwards, it was only a McLaren affair, with Norris putting pressure on Piastri for almost 50 laps of the race, albeit he was not able to get into the DRS zone and attack him for the lead.

Particularly impressive was McLaren’s MCL39 ability to warm up the tyres quickly: after the second safety car was deployed on lap 53 of the race, all top-3 decided to stop for new tyres, but while Verstappen opted for the soft tyres, the two McLarens went with hards. This seemed to be a bold choice that could prove counterproductive, but Piastri was able to set a 1.13.1 in the first lap after the restart, opening the gap to Norris and Verstappen behind to over a second. This exploits the MCL39’s ability to immediately warm up the tyres in every condition, extracting the maximum performance from them, regardless of the compound used.

However, with just seven laps remaining, an unexpected turn of events occurred: Lando Norris suffered an engine failure caused by an oil leak, forcing him to retire his MCL39 on the side of the track. This ended McLaren’s hopes of securing a fifth consecutive one-two finish. The exact cause of the technical issue that sidelined the 25-year-old is still under investigation. It will be interesting to see the results of the team’s analysis, which will determine whether the engine can be repaired or if Norris will need to take a grid penalty to fit his fifth ICE of the season.

Moving now on to analyse Red Bull’s weekend, they had quite a difficult start to the weekend, but a turnaround made between Friday and Saturday translated into a P2 finish for Max Verstappen at the end of race Sunday. During FP1 and FP2, in fact, the RB21 looked very difficult to drive, especially in slow speed sections and long corners, like in turn 9, 10 and the chicane 11-12, as a tedious understeering was massively slowing the car down. This happened despite the small upgrades brought on track by the team, which mainly concerned a different front wing design. As shown in the picture below, the team introduced a revised top flap on the front wing, which had a longer chord, mainly to generate more downforce at medium and high speed (light blue arrows) as well as a small winglet at the nose connection (red arrow).

These updates didn’t seem to help that much, as Verstappen ended FP1 in P6, particularly struggling on the soft tyres. The second practice saw the Dutch Champion relegated to P5, almost 6 tenths behind Norris in P1, showing a race pace that was around three-tenths slower on average compared to the two McLaren.

The car seemed to behave better on harder compounds, as the more robust structure provided by the medium C3 and the hard C2 allowed Verstappen to be more competitive, as they were not overheating as much over a single lap. The main limit in terms of performance was pointed out by Helmut Marko after second practice: “Yes, it’s still this understeer problem that switches to oversteer. To get the right balance is something we’ve been struggling with the whole season.”

To try to solve this balance issue, the team decided to completely turn the car around between Friday and Saturday: despite not changing anything visible, the team mainly worked on the mechanics of the car and on the downforce level. They decided to reduce the amount of downforce generated, to make sure that the aero balance shifted to the front axle, in order to give Verstappen some confidence in terms of grip. Moreover, the mechanical changes allowed the RB21 to be much more stable in the middle sector, especially through the 8-9-10 complex, where it suffered the most during Friday’s free practice sessions.

The results of all these changes were immediate, as Verstappen looked much more comfortable in the car from FP3 onwards: this allowed him to get P3 in qualifying, despite a gap of 0.263 seconds to Piastri in P1. Being behind the two McLaren and having nothing to lose made the 4-time World Champion in a prestigious position for Sunday’s race: he decided to start the race on the soft tyre, hoping to pass at least one of the two McLaren on the opening lap and then try to resist despite the pace difference.

That’s exactly what happened: with a phenomenal manoeuvre in turn 2/3, he was able to get pass Lando Norris for P2. However, as soon as the tyres started to degrade, he got past by the Britain, spending the rest of the race controlling his own pace, to bring the car on the podium.

At this point of the season, after the great amount of upgrades brought by Red Bull during the last few races, it’s clear that everything they can aim for is some sporadical victories on favourable layouts, as it’s certainly hard to challenge McLaren in normal race conditions. Monza and Las Vegas could clearly be two of them, as the RB21 proved to be extremely competitive in low downforce circuits, as it happened in Spa-Francorchamps, where Verstappen was able to win the Sprint on Saturday.

A lot will also depend on McLaren’s ability to suit their car to those layouts, even though they seemed to have struggled on those tracks where the degradation was quite low and where graining appeared on the front tyres (as happened in Suzuka and Imola). As a consequence, the next race could represent a big opportunity for Verstappen to clinch a race win after 8 Grand Prix.

Last but not least, Ferrari and Mercedes had a very difficult weekend for different reasons.

Ferrari had a terrible start of the weekend, with both cars out of the top-10 in FP1, proving that the set-up base chosen at the simulator before the start of the weekend was not right. Both Leclerc and Hamilton complained of a very unbalanced car especially through the second sector, where they were losing the majority of the time compared to the two McLaren. The SF-25 was lacking front-end and rear-end grip, as the car was sliding massively through the long slow speed corners, an aspect that has been typical since the beginning of the season.

This aspect was underlined by Charles Leclerc as well during the post qualifying interviews: “I think it's just the characteristics of this track that is highlighting our weaknesses. Like the long corners, 9 and 10, for example. It's crazy how much we are losing in those two corners and unfortunately there's not much we can do.”

The performance slightly improved for FP2, but they still struggled compared to direct competitors. The work done overnight seemed to have paid dividends, as the SF-25 seemed a bit more balanced especially in the second sector, but was still struggling to make the tyres last for the whole lap in qualifying, proving that engineers hadn’t been able to solve all big issues from the day before. Despite this, Leclerc and Hamilton were able to qualify in P6 and P7 respectively, a positive step forward after Friday’s struggle.

During the race, Leclerc managed to get P5 after a phenomenal start, but he lacked the pace to attack and pass Hadjar, who was running in an extraordinary P4. The contact with Kimi Antonelli after the pit stop put an end to his race. The same happened to Hamilton, who touched the wall at turn 3 while trying to chase Russell for P6. Ferrari’s setback for this race shouldn’t, however, erase the good performance they showed during the last few weekends, also thanks to the new floor introduced in Austria and the modified rear suspension introduced at Spa-Francorchamps.

For Mercedes they had a very mediocre weekend, on a track that was expected to not suit the W16 very well. The high stress put on the rear tyres, especially in race fuel conditions, caused the tyres to overheat on the two Mercedes, massively slowing them down during the race. Also, the contact both Russell and Antonelli had with Leclerc largely compromised their race: the British driver lost some parts of the bodywork, which translated into losing loads of downforce and thus lap time performance, while Antonelli was penalised after the contact with the Ferrari driver, finishing his race out of the points.