Red Bull Racing team principal Laurent Mekies admits: “We’re struggling a bit”

On paper, the Red Bull Racing stars were in decent form at the end of Friday’s practice sessions at the Red Bull Ring: Max Verstappen managed to set the fourth-fastest lap in both the first and second practice sessions. His team-mate Isack Hadjar improved from 12th on the FP1 timesheet to 7th on the FP2 timesheet.

However, both struggled, a fact they made plain over the radio. The third corner of the Styrian circuit proved particularly tricky for the pair; Verstappen complained of a drop in his power unit’s revs, and team principal Laurent Mekies confirmed from the pit wall: “It’s fair to say we’re still struggling a bit going into and out of the third corner.”

The fact that the engineers at the Milton Keynes-based team are grappling with the power unit’s behaviour is nothing new, the Frenchman went on to explain. “And it’s part of our job to get Friday’s problems under control in time for qualifying.”

“We believe there’s even more potential in the car,” Mekies continued. “And it wouldn’t be a great result if we were still five-tenths of a second off the pace on Saturday,” he added. “If we focus solely on ourselves, we can see that we still have some work to do to help Max and Isack get the most out of what they’re capable of. I hope we can find a bit more lap time.”

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