Red Bull Racing are now under significant pressure from Formula One rivals McLaren and Mercedes. While Max Verstappen has won seven from eleven races to date his count is just three from the last six. Red Bull’s start to the British Grand Prix weekend did not start well either as Sergio Perez was one of the first to fit the dry weather tyre in Q1 following a wet start to the session.

Perez misjudged the grip going into Copse Corner and took to the run off area. Then mystifyingly the Mexican driver attempted to put in some steering angle to avoid the gravel and ended up with a snap of oversteer going backwards to be beached in the kitty litter.

The session was red flagged and as the sun came out th circuit began to dry before the resumption. Verstappen then fitted the softest of the Pirelli range of tyres brought to Northamptonshire but he too struggled on his approach to the usually flat our Copse Corner.

 

 

 

Verstappen mimics Perez mistake

Unlike his team mate, Verstappen allowed the car to run in a straight line through the gravel before recovering the RB20 on the access lane besides the wall. However the speed Max  travelled through the gravel trap meant the stones were hurled against the detailed underfloor of the car from where much of the down force is achieved.

Verstappen scraped out of Q1 as a flurry of cars went ever quicker towards the end of the session but it was clear from the activity in the Red Bull garage before Q2 that as Red Bull later confirmed there was “significant damage” to the underfloor of Max’s car.

Max man handled the tricky RB20 into fourth at the end of qualifying three which means he will start alongside Lando Norris behind the Mercedes of George Russell on pole position and Lewis Hamilton directly ahead of Max on the grid.

Speaking after the session Christian Horner revealed the extent of the damage to Verstappen’s car when speaking to F1TV. “Unfortunately he did quite a lot of damage to the underneath of the car, the mechanics did an excellent job at managing to patch it up within the rules between the two sessions but a brilliant lap by Max,” said Horner.

Marko responds to rumours of engine trouble at Red Bull

 

 

 

Max risks back of the grid start

When cars complete qualifying they are under parc ferme rules which mean the teams and engineers are not allowed to change anything without penalty before the start of the race. Should a car suffer damage as did Max’s RB20, the teams can change damaged parts for safety reasons but they must be like-for-like.

Lewis Hamilton recently refused an upgraded front wing from Mercedes, the reason being if he damaged it in qualifying it would have to be replaced with an earlier version because the team had no spares available of the new specification.

Red Bull brought a new floor design to this weekends Grand Prix and currently it is unclear whether they have a spare which can be fitted to Verstappen’s car. Should a like for like floor not be available, Max will be forced to fit the old specification but will be dropped to the back of the grid.

Max would not be plumb last given Pierre Gasly has replaced his power unit and a number of other restricted components which saw the Frenchman rack up a total of 50 place grid drops once the numbers were totted up.

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Dutch champion still close to pole time

Speaking to F1TV, Max explained how matters unfolded: “I lost the car coming into Copse. I already slowed down but lost the car and almost crashed, kept it out of the barrier. Quite a lot of floor damage from then onwards,” said Verstappen.

“The team did a great job to repair as much as they could, but some bits were missing that you can’t really glue on, so from there we were just fighting with the balance of the car.”

During a Grand Prix the team would asses the damage and inform the driver of how many points of downforce he had lost. While this information was not disclosed by Red Bull Racing analysts appear to agree the lap time lost for Max would have been something between one and three tenths per lap.

At the lower end of that estimation, Verstappen would have made pole position even he was just 0.18 off the pace of George Russell who starts P1. Max jumped to the defence of his team mate who made a mistake at the same corner as the world champion describing what happened as “unlucky”.

FIA face heavy criticism across the paddock

 

 

 

Max defends Perez

“Yesterday when he jumped in the car in FP2, he looked decent. So it’s a bit unfair to say that this weekend he’s been off or whatever. I actually felt in FP2, he [looked] good. [In qualifying simulations], with the conditions, it’s tricky.”

Yet another poor session and a tough race ahead of Perez will mean Horner once again is facing questions after the chequered flag about whether the team were hasty in offering Sergio a new contract earlier this year.

When asked about this earlier in the weekend, the Red Bull boss gave a strange reply: “That’s a brutally hard question,” claimed the Red Bull boss.

“But, of course, the point that you sign a driver, the contents of any agreement are not going to be disclosed to all of you lot. So it made absolute sense to sign Checo at that point in time. But this is a business in which there are pressures to deliver.”

Sainz to join Alpine?

 

 

 

Horner suggests exit clause in Perez’ contract

This is the second d time Horner has made a not so oblique reference to exit clauses in his Mexican driver’s contract, which clearly means there are minimum performance standards for Sergio to achieve, or his new contract becomes worthless.

Clearly this is the reason Carlos Sainz is stringing along Alpine, Williams and Sauber/Audi as he waits to see if Red Bull are set to replace Sergio Perez.

Zak Brown accuses Horner of “a lack of respect”

 

 

 

Ricciardo SLAMS RB team

Daniel Ricciardo is in a strange Formula One place currently. He is the only one of the four Red Bull drivers not to have been awarded with a contract for next season despite beating his team mate win the last three Grand Prix. Yet far from being in a precarious position, the eight times Grand Prix winner looks set to receive an offer from the Williams team who want an experienced driver to replace the hapless Logan Sargeant.

Team boss James Vowles set his sights on signing Carlos Sainz to join the rebuild programme he is heading up at Grove, yet the inordinate delay the Spaniard has created while considering his future options appears to have seen him ruled out of Williams future plans with the team casting their net further afield… READ MORE