Verstappen gets updates
Red Bull takes full risk for Imola victory
By Martin Armbruster and Felix Görner
4/20/2022 11:06 am
World champion Max Verstappen has to end two of the three races of the season prematurely because of problems with his Red Bull. In the Formula 1 ranking, he is huge behind Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc. That should change urgently, so his racing team is taking a big risk.
Full risk, full attack is Red Bull’s motto for Ferrari’s Formula 1 home game in Imola (Sunday, from 2 p.m., on RTL and in the ntv.de live ticker) to spoil. The team will bring “smaller updates to the car” at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, announced Red Bull’s motorsport consultant Helmut Marko in an ntv interview – even though there is only Friday training on the program in Imola because of the sprint race on Saturday, so less time than usual there is to test the new parts.
“It is very clear: Ferrari has such a complex package that is easy to coordinate, everything has to be right so that we can counteract it. That’s exactly why we take this risk of bringing new parts with just one training session. We want to attack fully and see it our chance instead of just waiting. Ferrari and Leclerc are too strong for that,” emphasized Marko.
Before the home game, Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto had announced that the Scuderia would forego upgrades due to the changed schedule and would rather rely on the proven, winning package. A luxury that Red Bull and defending champion Max Verstappen cannot afford given that they are 46 points behind Charles Leclerc. Mainly because Verstappen’s car still weighs too much.
The bolide has been “massively” on a diet since Australia, said Marko, and there is “good hope” that the Imola changes will bring “some savings in terms of weight”. Losing weight in Formula 1 is “like people do. It doesn’t happen overnight, it’s a lengthy process because we’re a lot overweight, at least a lot more than Ferrari. If we get to Barcelona (May 20th to 22nd , Editor’s note) come close to Ferrari level, we’re actually quite satisfied.”
“Absolutely Winning”
As far as the World Cup ratings are concerned, Red Bull is not worried despite the hefty deficit. There are still 20 races to go and more than 500 points to be achieved, said Marko and recalled 2010. “At that time we were 44 points behind with Vettel during the summer break, also against Ferrari and Alonso at the time, and we were still able to turn it around.” Back then, Sebastian Vettel sensationally caught the leader Fernando Alonso in the last race in Abu Dhabi and won his first world championship.
What makes the “bulls” positive twelve years later: The package is “competitive”, the RB18 by design guru Adrian Newey “absolutely capable of winning in the right configuration”, says Marko. However, the Red Bull was “more difficult to get into the right temperature window in terms of the set-up,” explained the team advisor. Ferrari, on the other hand, drives out of the garage and is immediately fast in all temperatures. “In the first two races we were at eye level with Ferrari, also in Australia in the training sessions. In the race, we fell out of the right temperature window due to non-optimal setup changes and the rise in temperature on Sunday, had graining early on and were against Leclerc ultimately had no chance,” Marko summed up the Red Bull disaster Down Under. However, the track in Melbourne is an “atypical street course” and therefore not representative of the balance of power.
“Need to work on reliability”
Verstappen had hopelessly followed Leclerc at the Australian GP before the 24-year-old rolled out with smoke in the rear – his second zero number in the third race. The reason for the end was a burst titanium line through which petrol leaked, explained Marko. “A small hairline crack is enough in these high-pressure lines.” The defect had occurred for the first time, the cause was “not yet known in detail”. Possibly the bouncing on the straights played a role.
“We have to work on reliability,” said Marko. The three failures of Verstappen and Sergio Perez are “unacceptable”. The Austrian also protected his team. Red Bull had to develop “up to the last race” in the World Championship fight against Mercedes in the previous season. As a result, the car for 2022 was finished very late. Possibly a reason for the reliability problems, according to Marko.
Speaking of Mercedes: the 78-year-old has not yet written off the Silver Arrows despite a weak phase. The fact that Mercedes is in front of us in the table with a car “that is certainly not among the three fastest shows how solid this package is. At some point the knot there will loosen, the aerodynamics will work,” predicted Marko. “At the moment they are one second behind in qualifying, half a second behind in the race and not a direct opponent for us. But that can change relatively quickly. They will certainly have a say in the World Championship.”