Another Formula 1 Friday comes to an end without Max Verstappen at the top. In and of itself, this is nothing unusual in 2024, and even if the world championship leader is 0.684 seconds behind the leader in seventh place, a third place from teammate Sergio Perez seems to indicate more potential. But in reality it is not that easy, despite the update.
It is clear that, taking the circumstances into account, Verstappen is not seven tenths behind Lando Norris in Silverstone. Red Bull ran a different program in the second practice session. Verstappen started with the soft tyres after just 12 minutes. He drove his fastest lap a quarter of an hour earlier than Norris. “The track performance has improved significantly,” explains motorsport consultant Dr. Helmut Marko.
But Marko admits straight away that they are clearly behind at the moment: “Corrected, we are roughly behind Norris.” One to two tenths, according to Marko, which is actually completely lost at the beginning of the lap in the two tight corners in the inner loop. In the slow speed range, the Red Bull is inferior to the McLaren, at least with the Friday setup.
Red Bull weakens: Qualifying trim in Silverstone not good enough
Clear evidence of this is a second attempt by Verstappen on new soft tires, which he drove at about the same time as Norris. Like Perez, he lost a lot of time in the two tight corners in the first sector. After that, he was on the same level as McLaren. Until he lost the rear of his car coming out of Becketts in a high-speed change of direction for Chapel and had to abort the lap.
“It’s a mixture of several reasons,” Marko said to ORF after training. “The car slides too much. I think it’s more mechanical.” This means that Red Bull is already behind in the setup work and now faces a much greater challenge to correct this sensibly. Because, like the entire paddock, they are keeping an eye on the weather. The weather in Silverstone, but actually everyone agrees: At some point it will rain properly.
Is that in the race? In qualifying? “Finding the right compromise won’t be easy,” Marko is worried. “We have to look now: what will give us more wings? How much speed will we lose, how good are our chances? Then we have to build in the Max factor again, which copes relatively well with such a shaky car in such changeable conditions.”
Perez suddenly strong in Silverstone – even without updates
In the internal comparison, there was no Max factor to be seen in the second practice session for the first time in a long time. Sergio Perez was not only the best Red Bull in third place. The analysis of the aborted Verstappen lap shows that the Mexican was about the same speed even in comparable conditions.
Although Perez didn’t even get the new underbody. The only example is driven by Verstappen in Silverstone. But Marko doesn’t want to overstate its added value, saying it’s barely more than marginal: “It was about six points, which is half a tenth. Visually, the layman can’t see any difference.” It’s certainly not a major update.
After training, Verstappen said: “It didn’t go so well on the soft, but the medium looked a bit better. We still have work to do there, and we’ve tried a few things.” After looking at the long runs, however, Marko warns: “Not bad, but not on Norris’ level.”