Red Bull debuted floor, sidepod and rear corner upgrades at Spa this weekend at the F1 Belgian GP. With Spa being a sprint race, the Red Bull drivers had only one hour of practice to come to terms with the revitalized car before being thrown into a qualifying session.
New Team Principal Laurent Mekies commented on the timing and the effectiveness of these upgrades in an a print media session at Spa.
Yuki Tsunoda got the new floor ahead of Grand Prix qualifying for the F1 Belgian GP.
Mekies on upgraded parts availability and timing for Tsunoda at F1 Belgian GP
It has been established that Tsunoda has been running older parts than Verstappen. This has caused a minor stir in conversations about Tsunoda’s performance.
Mekies insists that the timing of Red Bull’s upgrades for the Belgian GP was determined simply by part availability when asked who decided Tsunoda got the new floor ahead of qualifying. It paid off as he finished 7th on Saturday afternoon.
“No, for the floor, as much as we got a lot of publicity for it, it’s nothing unusual or nothing different here. You know, you push very, very hard to get the latest specification as soon as you can on the racetrack.
“You get it for one car, then you get it for the second car, and it’s based on, you know, when are the parts coming, when is your next sample of that part coming.
“So as soon as it became available, we were then faced with a choice to either wait for the following weekend, or to use that slightly unusual window between sprint and main quali, which comes with some risk.
“It comes with some risk because it was extremely tight to be able to fit the parts of the car. So the crew did an amazing job, and as you have seen, we were actually slightly late going out for qualifying.”
Delayed upgrades narrowly cost Red Bulls qualifying performance
The F1 rules mandate that the cars remain in Parc Fermé conditions between qualifying and the race. The Red Bull mechanics were under a time crunch to fit the upgrades between the sprint race and qualifying on Saturday afternoon.
Both Red Bull cars stayed in the pits for eight minutes of Q1. This last minute car component change put the Japanese in a tough spot to begin with, having to cope with the car in a high pressure situation. This delay also could have cost them dearly since Spa is an especially long lap.
Mekies commended Tsunoda on his qualifying performance, starting P7 for the Grand Prix.
“You normally pay a price because the drivers need to adapt, and it’s not very nice to go into quali with a new specification car.”
“We felt it was worth the risk and the effort, and Yuki did an amazing job with it, to adapt through qualifying to it, and certainly did a big step of performance, and did a very, very strong quali. So it’s certainly a superb job he has done, to adapt and to extract car performance in these conditions.”
Mekies on the pitstop strategy blunder that cost Tsunoda points
On the rapidly drying track, the intermediate tyres were barely holding in the early running of the Belgian GP. Lewis Hamilton was the first to get the call into the pits on lap 11, with the majority of the grid following his lead on laps 11 and 12. Max Verstappen got the “box, box” radio message on lap 12.
Yuki Tsunoda pitted on lap 13, after not being called in on time on the previous tour. This communication error cost him a large amount of time and place as the slick tyres the rest of the grid were running were much faster.
Mekies took responsibility for this mistake, acknowledging that it cost Tsunoda precious points.
“So for Yuki, it was our mistake.
“We wanted to pit him on the same laps as Max, and everything was ready, the crew was out, everything was ready to get both cars, and we simply called him too late.
“So it’s on us, unfortunately. And one lap made a big difference today, so he lost, I think, three or four positions, which ultimately stopped his fight for the points.”
This is especially devastating for the Japanese driver, as his season has been far from smooth going. Tsunoda has only finished in the points three times this season, not including sprint race results.
However, the pace Tsunoda showed in qualifying with little experience with the upgraded components is very encouraging for the team. If the RB21 keeps trending in this direction, Tsunoda may be looking to secure his very first F1 podium in this season.
