After a challenging Friday at Silverstone, the Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team once again revealed some familiar limitations: a difficult start to the weekend, persistent understeer issues, and high sensitivity to the strong and variable wind conditions. Max Verstappen described the day as tough, but the Milton Keynes-based team does not see the situation as entirely negative. While qualifying remains an area needing improvement to gain crucial tenths of a second, the race pace shows promising signs and better indications overall.
Following a couple of recent races where Red Bull appeared strong and competitive right from the start of the weekend, this time the team seems to have taken a step backwards. The current scenario resembles the early Grands Prix of the 2025 season, where the engineers struggled to find the right setup on Friday to make the car predictable and easy to drive, often hoping for a “miracle overnight” to unlock performance improvements.
This time the RB21 seems to have truly regressed because, by the end of the practice sessions, Max Verstappen openly admitted that the first day in England was decidedly complicated. The car, as on previous occasions, displayed a balance far from ideal, especially suffering from a bothersome understeer that limited the Dutch driver’s confidence through medium- to high-speed sections of the track.
Although the RB21 remains fast and competitive on the straights—as expected—the front end lacks sufficient grip in corners where precise steering input is crucial. Red Bull begins to struggle, revealing all its weaknesses. The team philosophy is clear: when it is difficult to gain time through corners, the deficit is partly recovered on the straights, even running extreme low-downforce wings that allow them to reach speeds up to 6 km/h faster than McLaren.
“Personally, it was quite a negative day. I had no balance in the car, and it was very difficult to drive corner after corner. Overall, I would say it was a disappointing day for us,” Verstappen said after the first day of practice in Great Britain.
The four-time World Champion explained how the wind—today inconsistent and unpredictable with strong gusts—played a significant role by destabilizing the car. Wind has always been a factor at Silverstone, and on such a flat circuit, it easily upsets the aerodynamic balance of the cars in the fastest corners.
For a team that has made cornering speed one of its main strengths, this is a significant challenge. However, Verstappen, who finished 10th in Free Practice 1 and 5th in Free Practice 2 but was still nearly half a second off the top times, emphasized that the wind cannot be used as an excuse since all teams face the same conditions. What changes is how sensitive each car’s aerodynamic setup is to the wind.
“It influenced us a lot, but it’s not an excuse because everyone has to deal with it, right? It’s not easy, but it applies to everyone. Every weekend is different, and with this wind, our car seems particularly sensitive. In general, though, it wasn’t an easy day. Maybe there are some things we will analyze, but overall, we are lacking some performance.”
Regarding the understeer specifically, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko pointed out that there remain many unresolved doubts because certain problems experienced in single-lap qualifying runs also appeared during race simulations, though with completely different results.
The long-run pace, although not a very long stint, provided better rhythm indications despite the tires theoretically degrading. Conversely, on the single-lap runs with new tires—which should help mask some issues—the problems worsened. “We don’t even understand why. That understeer was still present [in the long runs], and our degradation was consistent.”
“On the long runs, we are in a good position, even better than Ferrari. We saw how Lewis Hamilton suffered from graining on his front-left tire and had to change his tires,” explained the Red Bull consultant. Marko believes that tomorrow’s lower temperatures could work in Red Bull’s favor by reducing the overheating issues seen today.
Beyond the temperature factor, it is crucial for the car to find a better balance. This was already observed in Austria, where on Fridays the main problem was understeer, but on Saturday and Sunday, with a warmer track, this turned into oversteer, causing tire overheating and loss of grip.
“In the second sector, we lose over three tenths due to understeer. On race pace, however, we are relatively okay. So, if we manage to balance the car a bit better, the situation doesn’t look so negative,” added Marko.
Team Principal Christian Horner also agreed with the current scenario, pointing out that the majority of the time loss comes from very specific points on the track: “We have some understeer to fix, so it’s a matter of balance. We are losing about 90% of the lap time in corners 6 and 7, which are slow and where you have to turn into the corner with the wind against you,” once again emphasizing the influence of wind conditions.
“But the rest of the lap is quite good, and the long runs, looking at the times, have also seemed good. I think we have something to work on; we just have to make sure we fix everything in the right direction overnight.”
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