World championship points are awarded tomorrow, so on paper nothing is compromised. There was a psychological backlash, however. For Red Bull, finishing the Monza qualifying sessions in seventh and eighth place was a blow, as brutal as it was unexpected. It’s one thing to be ahead of the others, which today means finishing behind Lando Norris, but it’s another to find yourself behind the two Mercedes and the two Ferraris. The scenario changes. The first piece of data, the one that made the Red Bull garage jump on its chairs, was the drop in performance that Max Verstappen suffered in Q3. The world champion finished the second qualifying session in second place, with a time (1’19”662) 21 thousandths behind the leader Hamilton.
Twelve minutes later, at the end of Q3, Verstappen found himself seventh, with a time of 1’20”022. In the first ‘run’ things hadn’t gone any better, Max had finished with the eighth time in 1’20”072. Given that the time obtained in Q2, although faster, would not have allowed Verstappen to improve his position on the starting grid, it is still strange that the drop in performance coincided with a drop in temperature of only three degrees. Another strange aspect: in Q3 Perez was faster with used tyres than with the last set of new softs saved for the last ‘run’.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
“We are perplexed,” admitted Helmut Marko, “McLaren seemed to have lost the superiority they had in Zandvoort, and in Q3 they returned to the top. Perez on used tyres was as fast as Max on new tyres, so something is wrong, normally a set of used tyres is slower by three or four tenths. I remain convinced that we are not cut off from the fight for victory, because the performance up to Q2 was there and also because in Monza you can overtake.”
The cause of the sudden problem that stopped the Red Bulls is being analyzed, the effects are known. “A lot of understeer on both sets of tires,” explained Verstappen, “which I don’t understand at the moment. I mean, the car was no longer driveable, I couldn’t attack any corners. Going four tenths slower than the Q2 time is not normal, and I don’t think it can be explained by a slight drop in temperatures.”
Max has a different view from Helmut Marko on what the achievable goals are in the 53 laps scheduled for tomorrow. “Victory? I don’t think so, but not because of the starting position. Over the course of the weekend we were too slow, when you don’t have a well-balanced car it becomes complicated to manage the tyres in the long stints of the race”.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
There is one aspect that is very striking. Red Bull in the last GPs has always given the impression of being in total control of the situation, even when there have been problems (from 2021 onwards never of a major nature) they have been known ‘pathologies’ that have been addressed efficiently. Seeing Red Bull engineers move the ballast to the front of Verstappen’s single-seater during the FP3 session is something that is striking. “It’s not a Red Bull thing”, commented an engineer from a rival team.
“We need to find the point where we went in the wrong direction,” Marko admitted. “From Miami onwards our sovereignty has vanished, the races that Max has won since the beginning of the summer were successes born of his qualities. We will have some time before leaving for Baku, time that we didn’t have between Zandvoort and Monza, and it will be important to clarify because the situation is becoming more serious. What would have happened if Newey had still been there? We have a very large technical base, but perhaps in a situation like this his enormous experience in Formula 1 could have been of help.”
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