Pressure from rivals led Red Bull to bring upgrade “three weeks early”

Red Bull brought forward the introduction of their latest upgrade due to the rising threat from their rivals.

The team brought a mixture of performance upgrades and new track-specific parts to the Hungaroring. It has produced enough examples of the update for both drivers with the exception of the most striking change, a flatter engine cover which replaces the previous ‘cannon’ shape design, which only Max Verstappen has this weekend.

Red Bull’s technical director Pierre Wache said they originally expected they would not have the new parts ready until the Dutch Grand Prix, the first round after the summer break at the end of August.

“Some part of the package was a plan for after shutdown and the people at the factory were able to push to make some aspect of it, for one car only,” said Wache. “But it was a push from the factory to make it three weeks earlier.”

Wache said the early introduction of the upgrade is “very important” for the team as its rivals have gained ground in recent races, cutting Red Bull’s lead in the constructors’ championship.

Besides the growing threat from their rivals, Red Bull also faces the difficulty of finding more performance from a design it has developed for over two-and-a-half years – and having to do so with less development time than the others under F1’s Aerodynamic Testing Regulations.

“We still have a capacity to develop the car, otherwise we will not bring the update,” said Wache. “And clearly the fact that the others are closer and closer, it’s a big aspect that we are pushing even more to bring the update quicker.”

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An important aspect of the update is not merely the increased performance it brings but how easily its drivers can access it, said Wache.

“The performance is not only coming from the overall downforce gain,” he said. “It’s coming from how the driver is able to extract it and how it affects the balance.

“We are pushing also in this area. That is a big part of it, and we still have some room of improvement on this aspect.”

While Verstappen has built up a comfortable lead in the drivers’ championship, Sergio Perez’s poor results in the team’s second car has cost them points in the constructors’ standings. Wache admitted he does not know how to explained Perez’s problems. “If I knew, I would fix it,” he said. “But it’s difficult to say.

“I think it’s partly us, for sure. We have to try to help him to extract the potential of the car.”

“It looks like the car response is not what he likes,” Wache added. “That is something that we have to address on our side.”

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However Perez was encouraged by his first experience of the limited selection of upgrades he was able to run on his car and set the fourth-fastest time on Friday.

“This is the most comfortable I have felt with the car at this stage of the weekend in a while,” he said. “The steps we have made throughout the day have been the best we can do and that is really positive.

“We are feeling good and the long run looked promising too. I think we can still really dial up the set-up now and at the end of the day it is just about putting everything together at the right time.”

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