Max Verstappen has outlined the weakness that has affected Red Bull at the Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya.
Red Bull’s advantage appears to have been slashed at the Spanish Grand Prix when Lando Norris secured pole by 0.020s from Verstappen, having improved on his provisional effort by 0.123s.
Norris is the fourth different driver to secure pole in the last four races, showing the upgrades Red Bull’s rivals have brought in the last few Grands Prix have closed the gap.
Even though the defending world champions brought five updates to the RB20 this weekend, Verstappen believes they are still impacted by a key problem when speaking about their pace on The Chequered Flag podcast.
Max Verstappen outlines areas Red Bull is ‘lacking’ compared to rivals
Verstappen’s qualifying session was impacted by choosing to run a higher rear wing level than he did in practice. The Dutchman felt he maximised the potential lap time of the RB20 through Turns 9 and 14 and focused on the areas they were lacking, but admitted after qualifying that it was potentially the wrong path to go down.
“The whole weekend so far I felt like we were not the quickest out there, we were lacking a bit of balance, and then I think we did a few good steps in qualifying and it felt really good. Probably a bit too good in the high speed, maybe we could have trimmed the car a bit there,” said Verstappen.
“Bit of a question mark still with the pace of everyone. In practice, some people don’t always run full fuel, so I don’t know. I hope we can fight for the win.”
Red Bull faces challenge from rivals
Even though Verstappen still starts on the front row and will be looking to convert it into a race win, teammate Sergio Perez starts 11th on the grid.
This is owing to a grid penalty he sustained after the Canadian Grand Prix when the stewards deemed his car was dangerous after damaging his rear wing. Former McLaren mechanic Marc Priestley branded his performance ‘not good enough’ and questioned Red Bull’s strategy to retain him in the long term.
Italian tyre makers Pirelli expect the race to be a two-stop strategy, meaning the undercut – pitting a lap before your rivals – could be strong. This works best when teammates are close to each other, as the other that does not pit can be used to manage the pace of everyone else.
Red Bull does not have the luxury with Perez starting outside of the top ten, meaning Verstappen will need to have blistering pace in the opening stages if he wants to challenge McLaren for the win.
Pirelli says a two-stop starting on the soft, switching to the medium, and then running the soft until the end is the fastest strategy. Verstappen and Norris both have a set of new soft tyres available, along with both the Ferrari drivers.
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