Is Red Bull a chance this weekend in Bahrain when it comes to victory? This is indicated by Helmut Marko and Christian Horner’s statements after the training on Friday. You see large weaknesses in the RB21 and fear that McLaren is just too fast on the Bahrain International Circuit.
“McLaren definitely seems to have a few tenths ahead of the rest,” team boss Christian Horner told Viaplay and sees “a big gap” between the top and his own team.
Max Verstappen was the eighth of more than eight tenths of a second behind the two McLaren, Yuki Tsunoda than 18 even more than 1.5 seconds. Of course, the past races have shown that Red Bull can increase again for qualifying, but unlike in Japan, the team does not think of a victory.
Mercedes had spoken of three tenths of a second on Friday afternoon, the McLaren lies in front of the rest of the world, but motorsport consulent Helmut Marko fears: “Unfortunately it is more.”
A similar feature as in Japan last weekend when Verstappen drove to Pole and also won, according to Horner in Bahrain is “impossible”, as he says. Even if the world champion in qualifying is supposed to succeed again, he could not keep the competition in the race as much as in Suzuka.
“This is a distance on which you can overtake relatively easily, one of the easier in the calendar in this regard,” says Horner.
Red Bull slips in the heat
This means that the positions in the end correspond more to the balance of power – and Red Bull sees himself behind in Bahrain. “This route is not ourselves, and the high temperatures don’t fit us either,” Marko struggles and, above all, sees the tires as a problem that “get hot relatively quickly”.
“As soon as the temperature rises, we slide. And slipping makes it worse,” notes the Austrian. Strange for him: In between, the tires recover and Red Bull drives at eye level with Lando Norris. “But that was only three or four rounds of 15,” said Marko. “Then we were missing a second, one and a half seconds,” he adds to “Sky”.
Why this is so is the big question. “If we knew that, we would change it,” he says. “But we will adapt the set-up like in Japan and hopefully we will find this golden mix with which we will be more competitive tomorrow.”
Verstappen struggles with the grip
“We first have to understand how we can improve what we have,” says team boss Horner and sees it as a disadvantage that Verstappen has left the first training session to leave Rookie Ayumu Iwasa at the wheel. “This means that we have less data and experience,” notes Marko.
Verstappen then drove on soft tires in the second training session to see how long they last. However, the Dutch was not enthusiastic because he didn’t feel a grip in the car. “I’m not really satisfied, generally had big problems with the grip,” he says.
The balance was generally not that bad, just something wrong, and yet Red Bull still has a lot to do – especially in the Longrun. “We were actually too slow in every round. To be honest, it was not a lot of fun out there in the Longrun,” he says. “In the end it was more drift training.”
But above all, the distance to McLaren is worried: “It is big, yes,” he struggles. “We tackled our Friday a little differently, but this distance is really very big.”
Tsunoda: “It has to be better”
The task for Yuki Tsunoda, which, according to Marko “tried something different”, was likely to be even greater, which was “not representative”. “He will definitely be faster tomorrow,” he announces.
The Japanese himself also hopes that it will get better on Saturday. “It has to get better,” he says, but it is optimistic: “At the moment it is difficult, of course. But at the same time I know that there is much more in it – if everything goes cleaner, the processes are better, then there is still a lot of time,” he says.
Only: “I know internally that the potential is there – it is difficult to get it out,” said the Japanese, who believes that it should be difficult at the moment to reach the top 10 at all. “Overall, this session was quite chaotic when it comes to putting together all elements.”
“There was also a lot of miscommunication outside the garage, for example about radio,” said Tsunoda, who had also driven past his garage. “We have to get the process much more smoothly. The warm-up, the switches, everything was pretty chaotic today.”
“I think that is part of the learning process – it has only been the fifth session since I got into the car.”