Friday’s Free Practice sessions saw Red Bull Racing benefiting from some positive results, with the F1 Austrian GP bringing together their home race crowd. Current world champion Max Verstappen claimed a position on the podium for both FP1 and FP2. Meanwhile, Yuki Tsunoda made some great improvements in between the two sessions, ending his second practice in P7.
This year’s championship battles are tough. With Red Bull facing great struggles to keep up with their rivals at McLaren, Verstappen keeps close in third to the two papaya drivers. This weekend’s race on home soil for the Austrian team could help the Dutchman further minimise the gap between himself and Lando Norris. While his teammate is focused on retaining his title, Yuki Tsunoda is still trying to adjust to that second Red Bull seat.
Max Verstappen
Coming into this week’s F1 Austrian GP, Verstappen faces the same type of problems he has been fighting against for all of 2025. Nonetheless, his outlook after FP1 and FP2 is quite clear. The Dutchman experienced issues with the overall pace of his Red Bull, as well as some understeer struggles. Yet, Verstappen and his team will try to fix that, and they will get another chance to adjust that in tomorrow’s FP3.
“Yeah, I think, overall, it was quite straightforward. We didn’t have any big issues, but just lacking a bit of pace. A bit too much understeer in the car as well, short run and long run. So that is something that we have to try and get rid of.”
Furthermore, this F1 Austrian GP brought a big switch in the Red Bull garage. Due to some personal issues, Verstappen’s usual race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase or GP, could not attend this race. In his place, Simon Rennie will be the voice in the Dutchman’s ear this weekend. While the bond between Max Verstappen and GP is something treasured by both, the driver managed to work quite well with Rennie.
“Yeah, no, for sure. But that’s how it is now. I think so far today has been really good with Simon [Rennie]. Of course, you know, I’ve known Simon [Rennie] for a long time on the other side of the garage, and I’m working with him also on the simulator. And he has a lot of experience anyway. So, it’s been actually very, very good today. Yeah, he was straight on it, and it was nice.”
Yuki Tsunoda
On the other side of the Red Bull Racing garage, Yuki Tsunoda made some massive developments between the FP1 and FP2 at the F1 Austrian GP. After starting off the weekend in a disappointing P17, the changes he and the team made for the second practice had him in P7. While Tsunoda is not completely happy with his Red Bull car, he did highlight the good aspects:
“I think it went in the right direction from FP1 for FP2. I think there’s still missing bits or maybe more, but at least I found a couple of positives we’ll look through more.”
Nevertheless, confidence is a key aspect when driving an F1 car. Since his unexpected move to Red Bull, Yuki Tsunoda struggled to find his footing. The Japanese driver is fortunately growing more optimistic after these Free Practice sessions. Yet, he emphasised the need to put all that he learned together for tomorrow’s qualifying.
“Yeah, definitely. The confidence to the car like this kind of track, you know, attacking to the very high speed. You need the confidence, so with that, I think confidence in FP2 felt much better. That’s all I need anyway, in the end. You’re still learning about this car, and you need a good buildup. So, so far I am happy with this kind of approach, just have to put it all together more tomorrow.”
