The Milton Keynes team ended Friday three tenths behind McLaren, although Helmut Marko believes the team is closer than the stopwatch suggests and that they are still in the fight. There remains the issue of the annoying understeer that limited Verstappen throughout the day, especially in the second half of the lap.
Three tenths represent a significant gap, hard to overlook. However, over the course of the season, Red Bull has often shown its ability to surprise, overturning situations from one day to the next, particularly when it comes to putting together a qualifying lap.
According to Helmut Marko, those three tenths do not represent the real gap to McLaren, even though the latter remains the favorite both for qualifying and the race. In the race pace simulation, McLaren showed the best performance on Friday, especially with Lando Norris, who has always had a special feeling with this track.
The British driver did not hide that he is in a good position after the first day, also because the changes made ahead of FP2 produced the desired results, immediately giving him a car he felt comfortable with, despite having skipped the morning session to give way to one of the rookies.
Despite McLaren confirming its role as the clear favorite, Red Bull does not want to concede defeat at the end of Friday. The hope is to find the final tenths to try to surprise at least on a flying lap, even though the Spielberg circuit has always offered good overtaking opportunities thanks to its three DRS zones.
“We are closer to McLaren, but they are still the favorites. We hope to find something from the car, but it will be a tough challenge. Today the temperatures remained relatively low, we’ll see what happens tomorrow when it should be warmer,” Marko said at the end of FP2, emphasizing the influence of temperatures on performance.
Both towards the end of the first session and during the afternoon, the asphalt never exceeded 40°C, which helped contain overheating and tire degradation. The track features a fairly rough surface and several areas that stress the tires, and for Sunday teams expect higher temperatures — a scenario that could further favor McLaren.
“We think the gap is not really three tenths, but we’re still behind, that’s clear. On race pace we’re competitive, but everything will depend on how we manage the tires on Sunday,” Marko added, although Verstappen’s stint was affected by traffic.
Ahead of the weekend, the Red Bull advisor had described Austria as a kind of last chance, especially because the team brought an updated floor to their home race, which will be completed in Great Britain next week. If the upgrades do not deliver the expected improvement — with the team’s focus already shifting toward 2026 — the title chase could become an unattainable goal.
The initial data on the new parts, currently fitted only on Max Verstappen’s car, have nonetheless provided encouraging signs: “So far, yes. It’s not a big step, but the direction gives us hope,” Marko explained.
Commenting on the day, Max Verstappen did not report major issues, apart from a certain lack of confidence in the front end, which emerged both in the second part of the qualifying simulation lap and over longer stints, when degradation started to set in.
The difficulties are evident in the data too: McLaren makes the difference especially under braking and through Turn 4, but also in other medium-to-high-speed corners, where the MCL39 benefits from greater aerodynamic load, particularly at corner entry. Unsurprisingly, during free practice, Verstappen complained about difficulty feeling the front in Turn 6 and the chicane at Turns 7/8, where he lost around a tenth and a half in the fast lap, in addition to time lost in Turn 4 and the final corner.
“I think it was a fairly clear day. We didn’t have major issues. But yes, we’re missing a bit of pace, there’s a bit too much understeer in the car, both in the qualifying simulation and in race pace. It’s something we need to try to address,” said the three-time world champion, highlighting that the understeer is linked to a lack of front-end grip.
This weekend, Max Verstappen cannot count on his usual race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, who is absent for personal reasons. At his side will be Simon Rennie, a long-standing figure in the team, who previously worked with Mark Webber, Daniel Ricciardo, and Alex Albon.
“I think today went really well with Simon so far. Obviously I’ve known Simon for a long time, even though he’s been on the other side of the garage, and I work with him in the simulator too. He has a lot of experience. He was on it right away and it was pleasant working with him,” said Verstappen.
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