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Red Bull is expected to have further updates to try to improve its “too slow” Formula 1 car for the Hungarian Grand Prix, after admitting Mercedes has moved the reference for performance yet again.
Mercedes won both Red Bull Ring races, avenging back-to-back defeats across 2018 and 2019, after surviving a gearbox scare in the Austrian Grand Prix then clinching a one-two in the Styrian Grand Prix.
Red Bull only banked one podium finish, Max Verstappen’s third place in the Styrian GP, after a double-DNF in the season opener.
Though Red Bull’s heavily-revised 2020 car seemed to have an edge on Mercedes in the slowest corners of the Austrian circuit it was lacking in medium and high-speed turns and also had a straightline speed deficit.
“Their straightline is impressive,” Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said. “We’re pretty much there in cornering speed, some we’re better than them, some not quite as good.
“But on this track their straightline [speed] is very impressive, They’ve made a good step over the winter.”
Red Bull’s engine partner Honda has been satisfied with its own progress although admitted to being “surprised” by Mercedes’ gains.
And as a package, Mercedes is simply stronger overall at the start of the season.
While Red Bull trails Mercedes and has not made the start to the season it hoped for, it should be noted that it is the only team even close to keeping pace at the moment following Ferrari’s slump.
Horner and Verstappen suggested that is evidence that Mercedes has moved the goalposts much more than expected, which means Red Bull needs to react.
“Mercedes are very strong,” said Horner. “The distance the three guys were ahead of the rest of the field was enormous.
“Max did well to keep up as well as he did.”
Verstappen added: “I was just pushing as hard as I could to try and stay with them. But clearly, it’s still not good enough.
“The gaps to the guys behind were massive. I was a bit shocked.
“I tried everything I could but it’s still not enough.”
Verstappen lamented his car simply being “too slow” to fight the Mercedes drivers in the Styrian GP, describing the car’s balance as “fine, but it’s just not fast enough over a lap, so we just need to work on a bit of power on the straights and a bit more grip”.
Though he didn’t report major ill-feeling after the race, Red Bull is convinced that damage he picked up was a contributing factor in a difficult second stint.
“We hit one of the yellow things and the bottom of the endplate has come off,” explained Red Bull’s chief engineer Paul Monaghan.
“It’s then become wedged in the bargeboard, so that hasn’t done us any favours either.
“So not only have we got bits of stuff hanging out of the bottom of the front wing endplate on the track, we’ve now got a bargeboard with a dirty great bit of endplate in it from the front wing, and we incurred a little bit of damage on the rear wings, I suspect pieces have vibrated and detached.
“The condition at which we released the car into the race has not matched the condition in which we received the cars back post-race.”
Horner said a loss of downforce was immediately registered on the data although the extent of the physical damage wasn’t clear at the time.
“We couldn’t see how much damage was there until the car came into parc ferme at the end of the race,” he said.
“A significant shift. What effect that had on tyre life, we need to look closely at and understand the data.”
If that gave Verstappen an underlying issue that he could not experience within the car, it will boost Red Bull’s confidence that the lower-speed Hungaroring will suit its car better this weekend.
But that will also come down to Red Bull continuing to neutralise a tricky car on turn-in for slow corners, because while such turns appear to be its biggest strength against Mercedes they have also caught both Verstappen and Alex Albon so far.
Red Bull has suffered from a nervous car since pre-season testing in February and tried to find ways to balance that out for the second weekend in Austria.
Further upgrades are expected this weekend to try to improve the car further.
“It’s a little bit everywhere, so we’ve got a bit of work to do,” admitted Monaghan.
“It looks like their engine is pretty strong, it looks like the car is strong and it’s going to be a tough challenge to catch them, but let’s see if we can and it’s not insurmountable.
“Hungary’s a different sort of circuit, isn’t it, the speed of the corners is lower and I think typically Hungary is usually less afflicted by variable weather compared with being in the Alps.
“Who knows, we might be better there and we’ll pick ourselves up, we’ll update the car as best we can, and go there and try and give them a decent fight and hopefully beat them.”
Horner said there was “not a great deal of time” to react to the double Austrian defeat before this weekend’s Budapest race, but also hinted at some new parts.
“Whatever we can get we’ll get,” he said. “The whole factory is working incredibly hard.
“I felt we’d improved the car from last week to this. Hopefully we can do the same again in the next five days.”
