Looking at the start of the season at Red Bull, one key detail emerges: the team has often found itself chasing from the first free practice session, due to a discrepancy between the setup prepared at the factory before the event and what was later discovered on track.
However, Jeddah could be described as the best Friday so far this season, thanks to a car that appeared more effective right from the first practice session, without the need to chase the setup as in previous events. This time, Red Bull starts from a better baseline to set up the rest of the weekend.
Although Jeddah is a track that suits the car, which shows strengths similar to those seen with the RB20, Red Bull started with a more favorable window this time, while still carrying out several experiments and differentiating setups between the two drivers.
Yuki Tsunoda, for example, experimented with something different from Max Verstappen but suffered from more understeer during the session. This was most noticeable in the second half of the lap, where he struggled in the tighter chicanes, requiring heavy steering work, rather than in the fast corners at the start of the lap, where a stable car that can generate high aerodynamic downforce is essential.
Helmut Marko confirmed this after the second practice session, calling it the best Friday of the season so far, not only for the result on track, which saw them third behind the two McLarens, but also for the work done, with various setups showing good results. Some elements remained similar to those seen at previous races, with a car strong in straights but less competitive in high-speed direction changes.
“I think it was the best Friday in quite a while. We tried different setups, and it worked for qualifying pace. We’re much closer to McLaren,” commented Red Bull’s consultant, highlighting that the three-tenths gap to the two “papaya” cars, though large, is the smallest they’ve had after Friday sessions so far this season.
While the RB21 seems closer to its rivals in terms of single-lap pace, as seen elsewhere, it’s the long-run pace that still reveals problems, especially with tire management. Jeddah has never been a particularly challenging track for tire degradation, thanks to its high-grip asphalt, but this year, Pirelli has taken a more aggressive approach with softer compounds to slightly vary strategies, hoping for more tire wear and more exciting races. However, even the C5 tire showed little drop-off, even during qualifying simulations, as it was given the chance to “breathe.”
Looking at past events, the trend remains that Red Bull struggles more over the long run than in single-lap pace, but not due to pure degradation, rather because the tires tend to overheat, losing grip. It’s no surprise, then, that Milton Keynes was one of the first teams to focus on long runs with the medium tire.
“On long runs, unfortunately, the tire temperature is too high. For tomorrow, we need to find more reliability and manage degradation better during the race, but still keep the speed for qualifying,” Marko added.
As mentioned, what gave Red Bull a bit of a smile compared to other Fridays is that their chosen direction seems to have yielded some positive results, thanks to the various experiments with setups, though more work remains to be done to match McLaren, especially in terms of consistency and adaptability to different tracks.
“The car isn’t balanced as we’d like yet, but we’ve taken a step forward. McLaren has a car that works everywhere, and we need to catch up. But I think we’ve definitely closed the gap to them on single-lap pace.”
“We’ve taken a different, new approach that works in one direction, but there are many details. I’m not a technician, but they were important changes,” Helmut Marko added, echoing Verstappen’s words.
“We’ve tried some different things with the car, trying to find an alternative direction, and I think we’ve learned a lot,” said the Dutch driver, giving a positive assessment of what was tested. These weren’t technical innovations but rather a different approach to setup.
“Personally, I don’t look at the gaps and I think, at the end of the day, you have to go by your feelings and what you sense in the car during a lap. And from that point of view, it went a little better. But long runs were still very difficult for us.”
There was also something new in Jeddah on Friday: Red Bull, as confirmed by Marko, chose to use more aggressive engine maps from the start, instead of “hiding.” This decision was also confirmed by telemetry data, showing the RB21 was faster on the straights, while McLaren, compared to other weekends, had dialed back their rear wing more.
“Yes, we used more powerful maps. Because we can’t always rely on trial and error. We wanted to understand how far off we were,” explained the Milton Keynes team’s consultant. Now, with a better base than other Fridays, the goal is to continue building and improve the car’s behavior during the race, while maintaining its single-lap strength.
In the past, the Jeddah race has always been a one-stop event, where track position has played a significant role. However, improving tire management would provide more strategic flexibility.
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