A fourth and sixth place in the sprint qualifying: Red Bull did not have a successful Friday in China. Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez were doing well in SQ1 and SQ2, but fell back when it started to rain. Perez could have been further forward without his mistake. However, Verstappen was unable to move forward in the chaos and had to make do with fourth place after two outings.
Verstappen himself explained what the problem was afterwards. “I had trouble getting the temperature into the tires. It was difficult to keep the car on the track. It felt like I was driving on ice. I think that’s why we’re right in this qualifying. It worked for me not in the wet conditions.”
Nevertheless, Red Bull will look at the regular qualifying with optimism, provided it remains dry. Perez was fastest in SQ1, when it was still dry, followed by Lando Norris and Verstappen. Perez was more than two tenths faster than the Brit. Charles Leclerc was Ferrari’s fastest man in that part, more than four-tenths behind the Mexican.
Red Bull has an extra advantage. If it rains again on Saturday, they can adjust Verstappen’s set-up after the sprint race, so that they can also perform well on a wet track when it really matters. So there is no man overboard when it comes to the regular qualification.
Longruns
Red Bull may be concerned about the long runs following the first free practice. The circuit in China is quite unpredictable in terms of tire wear and grip and it did not look too good for Verstappen and Perez in some practice sessions. Both drivers on the medium tires were on average half a second to eight tenths slower than Lando Norris, who also drove on the hard tire. Fernando Alonso, usually slower in the Aston Martin, also matched Red Bull’s times on the hard tire.
Are there any explanations for this? Naturally. It is possible that Verstappen and Perez drove with more fuel and Norris drove a fairly short long run due to the lack of training time. The question marks mainly arise from the words of Helmut Marko. After the first free practice, the Red Bull advisor indicated that a lot still needed to be improved to be at the front and suggested after the sprint qualifying that Verstappen’s RB20 had been tinkered with.
Marko said the following: “After the dry first free practice, in which we were at the front, we found a fault in Max’s car. We also adjusted some small things and that seemed to pay off.”
His closing sentence is positive and that in itself is not surprising, because Red Bull also made adjustments in Australia and Japan to be there again on Sunday. The problem is that there is no extra free training to collect data. Verstappen and Red Bull will therefore look for confirmation in the sprint race and then make any adjustments for qualifying for the Grand Prix.
Finally, there is one important question mark: Ferrari’s speed. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz rode on soft tires during the entire training session and it is therefore difficult to compare their longer runs with those of Red Bull. Of course Leclerc and Sainz were now a lot faster, but that is not really representative. One thing is certain: the weather conditions play a key role. Verstappen and Red Bull will hope that the raindrops do not arrive in Shanghai again.
