RB CEO Peter Bayer Confirms Barcelona Upgrades Are Working, but Team May Have Misjudged Sweet Spot of Car Set-up in Formula 1
Red Bull Racing CEO Peter Bayer has revealed that the team’s recent upgrades, which debuted at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, have shown promising results, but may have led them astray in finding the optimal car set-up for Formula 1 competition.
The RB outfit introduced a raft of upgrades to the VCARB01, including an updated floor, new rear wing, and re-designed engine cover. However, instead of building on their previous points-scoring streak, drivers Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo struggled to make an impact, failing to advance beyond Q1 and qualifying 17th and 18th, respectively.
Their fortunes didn’t improve during the race, with Ricciardo finishing a distant 15th, while Tsunoda dropped to 19th after reporting car problems. Ricciardo expressed puzzlement that he felt comfortable in the car, but the performance simply wasn’t there compared to previous weekends.
“The data are clear, they show that the upgrade works,” Bayer explained to ORF. “However, the race engineers explained it to me like this: It’s possible that these upgrades are fooling you. So, you think you’ve found a sweet spot for the car, but it’s not actually where the car tells you it is.”
Bayer acknowledged that the team let themselves get carried away and will now focus on re-analyzing the data. “These cars work like a pyramid, you have to find the peak at the top. These [simulation] models can make you believe that you’re at the top, but you’re not. It’s like thinking you’re standing on top of the Glockner, but in reality you’re standing next to it. That’s how it felt this weekend,” he added.
With the Austrian Grand Prix, which includes a sprint race, just around the corner, RB hasn’t ruled out the possibility of conducting a back-to-back test in FP1 at the Red Bull Ring. The pressure is on to swiftly identify the correct set-up direction to remain competitive in the Formula 1 championship. Bayer confirmed, “[Going back on specification] is an option, yes. Maybe we’ll do that for one of the cars. We have to find out very quickly what happened, because Austria will be a sprint weekend. That means we actually have to know in the first practice session what we want to do. The pressure is correspondingly high now. Everyone is already working flat out for next weekend.”
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