Red Bull cannot match the pace of McLaren on Friday at Silverstone: Verstappen and Perez have problems, especially in the slow corners
Lando Norris goes into his home race at Silverstone as the favorite after Friday’s impressions – at least if Red Bull’s motorsport consultant Helmut Marko has his way. The Austrian sounded the alarm after the second practice session on Friday: “We are losing too much in the slow corners, especially in sector one we are losing almost three tenths,” said Marko on ORF, who pinpointed the biggest problems in turns three and four.
In particular, the wrong direction that his team took with the set-up after the first session worries the man from Graz: “Corrected, we are worse than in the first practice, the long run was not so confident either – still good, but not at the level of Norris either,” explains Marko, who believes his team is also behind in the short run and states: “We still have a lot to correct here.”
Verstappen also admits: “We have some work to do after these first two practice sessions at Silverstone. Things didn’t go so well on the soft tire in the second practice, the medium looked better.” He aborted his fastest lap after a slide in Chapel, so the lap time is not entirely representative
Marko classifies the gap: “Not six tenths “
Marko doesn’t want to overdramatize the big gap to leader Norris, who put a good four and a half tenths on Sergio Perez in the late afternoon and over six tenths on Verstappen: “Corrected, it’s not six tenths, but it’s still behind Norris.”
At least in terms of driving feel, Perez is actually quite happy with his car after practice: “It feels good. I think we need to find some balance in the slow and medium-speed corners, but at high speed it feels really good,” the Mexican gives Red Bull hope.
However, Marko makes it clear that the engineers are now looking for a better compromise: “It remains to be seen whether we can find the right balance so that we can maintain our performance in the fast corners without losing so much in the slow ones.” After all, tire wear on Friday was “not bad”, “but also not so good that you could go into the race with peace of mind.”
The same applies when looking at the weather forecast, which does not look particularly friendly for either Saturday or Sunday, which is why the team is asking itself a few basic questions, according to Marko: “What compromise do you make? Do we rely a little more on rain, which means more wings and the like?”
However, the Austrian is clear about the effect of the changes between the two practice sessions: “The step we took was certainly not the right one, because we simply lose everything in the slow corners in the third sector phase as well,” reveals Marko – and believes with regard to the difficulties: “It’s a mixture of several reasons, the car slides too much and I think it’s more mechanical. “