Red Bull’s mood matched the skies over the Hungaroring as both Max Verstappen and Alex Albon struggled during Hungarian Grand Prix practice.
Typically, the high downforce Budapest track is one the strongest for the Anglo-Austrian team, but on a day which was half washed out due to lunchtime downpours, the Dutchman was frustrated by traffic and poor handling as he slumped to P8 in the only representative session.
“Not so good,” Verstappen said reflecting on Friday. “Plenty to look into.
“Of course, [it was] a little bit of a shame it was raining in the second practice as otherwise, we could have had a look. So yeah, a lot of work to do.”
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Teammate Albon was outside the top 10 in both sessions, and admits he lacked the confidence to push the Red Bull.
“[It’s] just more unpredictability than anything else,’’ he said. “It’s not one corner, it’s not a big margin in a specific place it’s just bits everywhere.
“The car’s not quite what we want and we just need to do some work to find out what’s going on.
“I think the weather has been hurting us a bit – just trying to understand the car a bit better. Obviously, FP1 wasn’t ideal and we couldn’t try anything for FP2.
“We will have to look through the data in a bit more detail tonight and see what we can come up with for tomorrow.”
Speaking earlier in the week, Verstappen also highlighted a lack of consistency from the RB16 as one of its main deficits to the current pacesetting Mercedes.
“Any car is difficult when you drive it on the limit. It’s more about it being predictable,” he explained.
“Low speed we are very competitive, so that’s a positive. A few high-speed corners, they are just very strong.
“You look at their onboard and their car is very stable and predictable. Mine, as I said, the second week [in Austria] it was a lot more predictable, but it seems like they have another step on top of that.
“They can really throw the car in and the car just looks hooked. We will try to work for something like that. It has a lot of impact on tyre life as well when you have a very stable car.
“It’s not only over one lap but also the race as well to keep on top of your tyres. It seems like they are pretty decent about that as well.”
