F1: Jury out on Red Bull upgrade, qualifying tweak
(GMM) The jury is out as to how successful Red Bull’s car upgrade is in Hungary because pacifying tree huggers to save tires limited Friday running.
Sergio Perez crashed one version of the package in FP1, with Dr Helmut Marko revealing the Mexican is now out of spare parts.
As for Max Verstappen, he was out of the top ten in the later session – with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in P1.
“Because of the new tire distribution, everyone is doing something different so it’s almost impossible to read where everyone is,” Leclerc said.
“Red Bull may not have had the best day, but I still expect them at the front.”
Marko agreed that Verstappen’s car still needs “fine-tuning”.
“But we’re strong on the long run. That calms me down,” said the Austrian.
“We still have to improve a few things, but we know where to start.”
| We briefly dive into the sporting regulations test limiting tire availability to pacify tree huggers using the false claim that climate change is man-made – many scientists are now coming out and saying it is not and the data is rigged.
The problem is that this new test qualifying format reduces the total available tires from 13 to 11 (3x Hard, 4x Medium, 4x Soft). After FP1 a set must be turned back, after FP2 another one, after FP3 two more. This means that you go into qualifying with a maximum of 7 sets. But you need some of each type here now because in Q1 Hard, in Q2 Medium and in Q3 Soft are mandatory. And, of course, they would also like to have new tires in the race. It quickly becomes clear that no one wants to use more than one set of tires per practice session on Friday. And then there’s not much going on. |
Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton joined Leclerc in criticizing the smaller-than-usual tire availability in Hungary, as part of a qualifying format tweak.
Verstappen agreed.
“It’s not ideal because the aim was to save the tires and that’s not fair on the people in the stands,” said the Dutchman.
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri is also disappointed with the format tweak trial, commenting: “It’s not so much fun when you only have a couple of sets of tires for the whole of Friday.”
As for Daniel Ricciardo’s return to racing action in the Alpha Tauri, boss Franz Tost said it’s “understandable” that teammate Yuki Tsunoda was quicker on the soft tire runs.
But he is happy to have the experienced Australian onboard.
“He drove the best car (the Red Bull) last week – that means he can tell us whether we have a hopeless car or whether we can do something about it,” said the Austrian.
“I told him he should never have left. This is his team, this is his home.”
Tost is therefore not putting a halt to speculation that Red Bull might see Ricciardo as the eventual replacement for the struggling Sergio Perez.
“If a driver changes from Alpha Tauri to Red Bull, that’s 100 percent ok with us,” he smiled. “Personally, I prefer that to another driver being taken on. That’s what we’re here for.”