Friday at the F1 Hungarian GP was not an easy one for Red Bull, with both drivers Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda struggling to keep up with their main rivals.
Verstappen, who finished P9 and P14 in the first and second practice sessions respectively, described the day as “quite bad”, citing balance issues with his RB21 once again.
“Today was very tough,” he said, speaking in the TV pen after FP2. “Just a really low grip feeling. Not really a balance in the car.
“So, it’s difficult to say what is the exact problem. Nothing really worked. So, this is something that we have to investigate overnight. Because so far, of course, it’s been our weekend.”
Verstappen acknowledged that the issues were serious, but confidence seems high going into qualifying, with the Dutchman assured that his team can identify the problems with the car.
Both practice sessions were dominated by the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, who currently sit ahead of Verstappen in the drivers’ championship. According to Verstappen, success for Red Bull this weekend would see the Dutchman finishing in the top three.
“I’m sure we can do better,” he said of the team. “But today was quite bad. So, we need to really understand first where it is and what is causing us to have such a big problem with the car.
“McLaren looks really on it. They’re flying. But, naturally, of course, I want to be a little bit closer to P3.”
Verstappen dodges penalty after towel incident at F1 Hungarian GP
Verstappen did come under investigation for an incident during FP2 in which he threw a towel out of his car on track.
The towel had been left in the vehicle after Red Bull had completed some setup changes. Verstappen received a warning from the FIA for the incident, having explained to the stewards that it would have been more unsafe to return to the pits.
“Instead of it, of course, maybe potentially flying in between my feet – which is the dangerous part – I drove offline and I got rid of it in the safest way possible,” he said.
“So, I think the stewards understand that.”
Tsunoda: Red Bull is “struggling” at F1 Hungarian GP
Verstappen’s teammate Tsunoda also recorded some rather disappointing results on Friday, finishing P17 and P9 in FP1 and FP2 respectively. However, instead of the balance that Verstappen was struggling with, Tsunoda identified grip as the main issue troubling his performance.
“I think the balance itself is not the main issue, to be honest,” he said. “I think where we’re struggling at is the grip that normally I should feel, and that’s where we’re lacking at.
“But at least for our side, at least from FP1, [there’s] a bit of a step [forward] from that.
“So, at least some steps, positives, which is good. But still, I think overall as a team, we’re struggling.”
When asked if he was confident the team would be able to remedy these issues going into qualifying, Tsunoda seemed apprehensive, stating it would be complicated.
“We’ll see. I mean, it’s not probably an easy thing. We changed a lot of things into FP2.
“And yeah, I’m sure there’s something that we can take positive from Max’s car and my car as well. So we just combine [them with] each other and I feel like we have to find something, a bit more core limitation that we’re probably missing. And we have to find out for sure to qualify tomorrow.”
