Cezar Titor article – published on Saturday, April 12, 2025, 00:03 / Updated on Saturday, April 12, 2025 00:09
In the second free training session, on the “Sakhir” circuit, Max Verstappen, who did not participate in the first session, being replaced by Ayumu Iwasa, ranked seventh, over 0.8 seconds behind Oscar Piastri. At the same time, Yuki Tsunoda finished only 18th, over 1.5 seconds.
Given these results, Dr. Marko was extremely direct, saying that Red Bull is simply slow this weekend. The Austrian also commented on the problems that Verstappen encountered with the management of tires during the race simulation in the evening session.
Dr. Marko also stated that Red Bull will make changes to settings for Saturdays, in the hope that they will repeat the return they succeeded in Japan last week. Then Verstappen was again in training, but managed to get the pole position, and then Victoria in the race on the “Suzuka” circuit.
We are too slow and overheat the tires. The difference is not due to the engine settings. The main problem is the temperature of the tires, which we cannot control. As soon as the temperature rises, we begin to skate. And the skating aggravates things. Strange, but at one point the tires are recovering and we manage to maintain a pace similar to that of Lando, but this only happens in three or four of 15 tours. If we knew how to solve the problem, we would have already solved it. But we will make changes, as we did in Japan, and hope to find the ideal combination of changes to settings to be competitive tomorrow
– Helmut Marko
