For Red Bull, the first official Friday of the new Formula 1 season ended with mixed feelings. During the opening practice session, the Milton Keynes-based team managed to place both of its cars inside the top four positions on the timing sheets, suggesting a promising start to the race weekend. However, the second session proved to be more complicated, with additional difficulties emerging as the track conditions evolved and rival teams began to show more of their true performance.
In FP2, Max Verstappen was only able to secure sixth place on the timesheets, highlighting that there is still work to be done before the team can fully unlock the potential of its car. Alongside the performance challenges, the team also encountered the first small reliability concerns of the season, together with some setup-related headaches that affected the smooth execution of the planned program.
At the end of the day, both drivers and Red Bull chief engineer Paul Monaghan shared their thoughts about the opening practice sessions, offering insight into the team’s current situation and the areas that still require attention before qualifying and the race.
Verstappen: “We are where we knew we would be. To compete with the others we need more speed”
Max Verstappen set his personal best lap time of 1:20.366, which placed him in sixth position, six tenths of a second behind the fastest driver of the session, Oscar Piastri. The Dutchman completed only thirteen laps overall during FP2, as he remained in the garage for a large portion of the first half of the session while the team worked on the car.
When he eventually returned to the track, Verstappen first ran on the medium tyre compound before switching to the softer tyres later in the session. Despite the limited running, the reigning world champion remained relatively calm about the overall situation.
“We couldn’t have wished for much more today. We are happy with what we have done so far, but if we really want to fight for the top positions, we need to be faster. That is exactly what we are working on,” said Verstappen.
During the final minutes of FP2, the four-time Formula 1 world champion also completed several laps with a higher fuel load as the team attempted to gather long-run data. However, one moment in particular attracted attention when Verstappen had a significant off-track excursion at the fast Turn 10 corner.
“In FP1 we completed a good number of laps, while in FP2 we encountered some issues. We are working to fine-tune the car. We struggled a bit with grip and we even ended up in the gravel. It was not a perfect day for us, but in terms of pace we are roughly where I expected us to be. There is still a lot of work to do and we will analyze what worked and what we can improve overnight.”
The incident in the gravel did not cause major damage, but it did highlight that the RB22 still requires careful setup adjustments in order to find the optimal balance and grip level around the circuit.
Hadjar: “We encountered more issues in FP2 which disrupted the planned program”
Verstappen’s teammate Isack Hadjar made his official debut with the team during the session and immediately showed encouraging speed during the opening practice run. The young French driver impressed by setting the fourth-fastest time in FP1, demonstrating that he was able to adapt quickly to the car and the circuit.
However, the afternoon session proved more complicated for him as well. A number of reliability-related issues limited his running and ultimately prevented him from completing the program as originally planned.
Hadjar eventually finished FP2 in ninth position on the timesheets, a result that did not fully reflect the pace he had shown earlier in the day.
“For our first session of the season everything went well. The power unit reliability was good and it performed in a solid way throughout the day. We encountered a few more issues in FP2, where we struggled with power delivery, which made it quite difficult to complete consistent laps. It is never completely smooth on the first day, so we will analyze the situation and fix it before tomorrow.”
Despite the setbacks, the French driver remained optimistic that the team will be able to solve the problems overnight and return to the track in better shape for the final practice session and qualifying.
Paul Monaghan: “Electronic control unit issue for Hadjar”
Within the Red Bull garage there was also a sense of pride, as the session marked the first official appearance of the team’s brand-new power unit developed internally with the support of Ford. It represented an important milestone for the project, which has been under development for several years.
“Today we put two cars on track with our power unit for the first time during a race weekend, so we did a fantastic job given that both cars were competitive in FP1. Since everything is new, we are continuously gaining knowledge. It is easy to get things wrong and difficult to be perfect, so we will learn from today’s lessons and make sure we are ready for qualifying tomorrow,” explained chief engineer Paul Monaghan.
The British engineer then went into more detail about the technical issue that affected Isack Hadjar’s car during the second practice session.
“The setup was good and there were a couple of issues in FP2. The electronic control unit had a malfunction in the pit lane on Hadjar’s car. We recovered it, but then we could not get the car out of gear. We managed to fix the problem and then we sent Isack back out on track.”
The incident cost the team valuable track time and partially disrupted the afternoon program, but the mechanics were able to resolve the issue quickly enough to allow Isack Hadjar to return to the circuit before the end of the session.
There were also difficulties on Verstappen’s side of the garage. As mentioned earlier, the Dutch driver struggled to find sufficient grip in certain phases of the session, which ultimately led to his excursion into the gravel at Turn 10. During that moment the underside of his Red Bull RB22 sustained minor damage after passing through the gravel trap.
“Max also had a spin and ended up in the gravel. Everything is repairable and we will be ready well in advance for FP3 tomorrow morning. It is difficult to say who will be ahead tomorrow and what the others will do is not under our control. All we can do is extract the maximum from our car and see where that takes us. Our main objective is to understand how to complete as many laps as possible while maximizing the car’s performance in qualifying,” concluded Monaghan at the end of the second free practice session for the Australian Grand Prix.
The first day of running therefore provided the Red Bull team with plenty of useful data, even if it was not completely free of complications. With a full night available to analyze the information gathered during practice, the team will now aim to refine the car’s setup and return stronger for the decisive sessions of the weekend.
Leave a Reply