Last Updated on April 23 2026, 1:19 pm
Secret film day at Silverstone – Even during Formula 1’s brief spring lull, development work has continued at full speed behind closed doors. Following similar sessions involving the Audi Formula Racing Team and Scuderia Ferrari, Red Bull Racing held a private filming day at the Silverstone Circuit. This session gave reigning world champion Max Verstappen the opportunity to test early elements of a new upgrade package ahead of the 2026 Miami Grand Prix.
Although it was officially framed as a promotional outing, the real purpose was clear: to gather valuable on-track data following a disappointing performance with previous upgrades at Suzuka.
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The development race intensifies across the grid
Red Bull is far from alone in pushing hard during the enforced break. The Mercedes recently completed a two-day tyre test for Pirelli at the Nürburgring, while Audi conducted a filming day at Monza focused on improving the power unit. Ferrari also used the Italian circuit to evaluate a significant aerodynamic redesign.
The scale of development across the grid is striking. Ferrari has suggested that up to half of its car will be new for Miami, and Andrea Stella has hinted that the McLaren Formula 1 Team could effectively field a ‘completely different car’.
The break has offered teams a rare opportunity to refine their concepts away from the immediate pressure of race weekends, which could significantly alter the competitive landscape when the season resumes.
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Red Bull are searching for answers after Suzuka
For Red Bull, the urgency is particularly high. The Milton Keynes-based squad introduced a substantial upgrade package featuring a redesigned underbody, revised sidepods and updated bodywork at Suzuka earlier in the season. However, the results fell well short of expectations.
Both Verstappen and his teammate, Isack Hadjar, reported persistent balance issues which proved difficult to resolve despite extensive setup changes. The car’s unpredictability limited performance gains, leaving the team searching for solutions.
Engineers have spent weeks analysing data from that race, trying to understand why simulation improvements did not translate into real-world gains.
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A cautious approach ahead of Miami
As the Miami Grand Prix features a sprint format, reducing practice time significantly, Red Bull opted for a more cautious approach. The filming day at Silverstone provided a controlled environment in which to validate updated components, ensuring that they would not head into a competitive weekend with unanswered questions.
Trackside images from the session suggest noticeable changes to the front wing and sidepod areas, though the team is expected to keep the full details under wraps until Miami.
As well as making aerodynamic adjustments, the session allowed the engineers to experiment with energy deployment strategies and gather correlation data between simulation tools and actual track behaviour — an area that has proven problematic so far this season.
The limits of a filming day
Formula 1 regulations strictly limit private testing during the season, which is why teams increasingly rely on filming days to increase their mileage. Each team is permitted just two such days per year, with a maximum distance of 200 kilometres and the use of special demonstration tyres supplied by Pirelli.
Only one car can run and the conditions are far from those of a full race weekend. Nevertheless, these sessions are invaluable for initial validation work, especially when time is limited elsewhere.
Red Bull’s outing was conducted with notable secrecy. The team did not publicly announce the session and restricted media access. Nevertheless, the activity did not remain hidden for long, with onlookers near the circuit catching glimpses of Verstappen on the track.
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Breakthrough reached: Can Red Bull bounce back?
The key question now is whether this latest round of upgrades can deliver the breakthrough Red Bull so desperately needs. Despite their reputation for rapid development, the team has yet to realise the performance gains suggested by its simulation tools.
Miami will provide the first real answers. With limited practice time and fierce competition from rivals making equally aggressive upgrades, there is little room for error.
Sources at Red Bull seem to suggest a possible breakthrough in terms of testing validation on track when compared to the simulator.
For Verstappen and Red Bull, this secretive Silverstone test could be a turning point — either the start of a recovery or another frustrating setback in a season of missed opportunities.
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NEXT ARTICLE – The obsession behind F1’s rule ‘tweaks’
Formula One claims it has acted swiftly and decisively to change the 2026 rules which have proven so far to be a farce. Firstly, as a matter of safety, F1 and the FIA needed to act to prevent the horrendous closing speeds which have been visible between cars who are deploying electrical boost and others who are harvesting energy.
Last time out in Japan, Haas F1 driver Oliver Bearman was blasting through the right-hander on the approach to Spoon when he came upon the dawdling Alpine of Franco Colapinto who was storing up electrical energy. The result being the Haas F1 driver ended up in the wall and suffered a massive 50g impact. While he was helped away limping, fortunately the British driver suffered no broken bones.
To prevent this, it has been agreed that in ‘non-hard’ accelerating zones, the maximum deployment from the car will be cut from 350kW to 250kW. Where the full amount of power will be available is out of a corner onto a straight, but in the case of Bearman in Suzuka on the entrance to Spoon corner, he would have had just under a third less electrical boost which may have mitigated the incident.
The obsession with absolute speed
The headline number which will disappoint some of the engine manufacturers is that the maximum charge which can be recovered across a single lap is being reduced from 8MJ to 7MJ. This will add around a second of lap time, a matter which F1 appears pretty concerned about for some reason. A far safer and better solution would have been to cut this number by another 1MJ to 6MJ, which would see the drivers run for most of the lap without resorting to strange energy recovery tactics.
Yet despite no TV viewer or most spectators at the circuit being able to detect a two-second-a-lap slower F1 car, F1 stats appear important to the commercial rights holder and the regulator of the sport. At the recent Goodwood event some of the most exciting racing was between Mini’s and Escort 2000’s. It’s not the matter of absolute speed that F1 should obsess about, but the excitement in the racing. That said, the new 7MJ will mean less lift and coast from the drivers and more attacking into the apex of the turns.
One of the most farcical elements of the current set of regulations is the sight of a car hurtling down the straight, only to seem to lose power with hundreds of metres to go. This is not merely due to…CONTINUE READING THIS STORY
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