In the first 6 races of the season, we saw Red Bull win only one race while McLaren dominated the rest of the races. However, in Imola, we saw something new from Red Bull that allowed Verstappen to take the race victory. But was the improved pace because of the Imola track specifications, or can we expect them to be more consistent going forward?
For the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, most of the teams on the grid decided to bring some upgrades to their cars. Until then, Verstappen showed some strong qualifying performances, but was unable to keep up with the McLarens when it came to race pace. So this was the priority for the upgrades in Imola. From what we witnessed last weekend, the upgrades have worked well.
Red Bull improves on race pace
During the race in Imola, many expected Verstappen’s tyres to fade away quicker, allowing Piastri or Norris to make a move on the 4-time Champion. However, as it turned out, the Dutch driver’s pace was more or less similar to the McLarens. Even when Norris was on clean air, he was unable to close the gap to Verstappen.
After the race, Helmut Marko spoke about how well the upgrades worked for Verstappen.
“I think the updates that have been made have now had their full effect. We were actually the same or better than McLaren in terms of tyre wear,” said Marko on Sky DE.
With these upgrades, Red Bull’s team principal, Christian Horner, has stated that the priority for the team for this season is to help Verstappen win the Drivers’ Championship. They are aware that winning the Constructors’ Championship is a long shot for now, as Tsunoda is still getting adjusted to the car. Hence, they are focusing on their star driver.
Since Red Bull seems to have found answers to their problems, we could see Verstappen come back to fight for the title. At the moment, Verstappen is 3rd in the Championship with 124 points. Leading the Championship is Oscar Piastri with 146 points. Although Max is 22 points behind, we are only 7 races into the season, and there is another 17 races for Verstappen to catch up.
While Verstappen seems to have a chance now, McLaren are not going to just sit by and do nothing. The Orange Army will continue to develop their car to unlock as much performance as possible for this year to allow both their drivers to compete for the Championship. So we’re going to have an interesting title fight this year.
What about Yuki Tsunoda?
We have spoken a lot about Max Verstappen here. So what about his teammate driving the same car? From what we have witnessed, the Red Bull car is not like every other car on the grid. The window of performance with the RB21 is very small. Since Max Verstappen has driven similar designs for the team for years, he is able to understand the car better than the newcomers.
This year, we first saw Liam Lawson in the RB21, only to be demoted after just 2 races to make way for Tsunoda. While Red Bull has announced that they will stick with Tsunoda for the rest of the season, they will have to wait for him to get adjusted.
Yuki Tsunoda on RB21 Struggles: “Still Learning to Push to the Limit”
Red Bull is aware that the RB21 is difficult to drive at the moment. This was one of the reasons they brought Yuki Tsunoda, who is more experienced than Lawson. They are expecting him to help Verstappen identify issues with the RB21 to make it easier to drive and increase the window of performance.
Now that the Austrian team has found a way to unlock race pace, they can focus their next set of upgrades to help increase the window of performance.
Do you think Tsunoda will be able to find performance in the RB21 and assist Verstappen in winning the Championship? Post your thoughts in the comments section below.
