Red Bull’s poor performance in practice “took us by surprise”, drivers admit · RaceFans

Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez were dismayed by the performance of their Red Bull in practice for the Singapore Grand Prix.

Championship leader Verstappen was only 15th, almost 1.3 seconds off the pace, at the end of the first day of practice at the Marina Bay circuit.

“It’s difficult,” he admitted. “Just not having the grip that we would like, so a few things to look at there.”

Red Bull suffered their worst weekend of last season in Singapore, which was the only event they failed to win during 2023. On that occasion the team particularly struggled with their car’s ride over the bumpy track surface, but Verstappen said that “is less of a problem” this weekend.

“I’m not really struggling with the bumps or the kerbs, just the general grip,” he told the official F1 channel. “So again, we have to look at the the trade-offs between the two.”

Red Bull came into this weekend hoping to build on the improvements they made to their car at the previous round in Baku. Perez said their poor performance “took us by surprise” on Friday.

“Definitely we’ve got some work to do overnight because we are quite far [away],” he admitted.

“I think we’ve improved a little bit but still we are lacking quite a lot of balance. It is quite difficult out there to put a lap together. It’s not looking great at the moment.”

Perez was the quicker of the team’s drivers in Baku and led the way again today, lapping 0.871 seconds of Lando Norris’ session-topping time. But he admitted Red Bull have a lot to find overnight.

“We are nearly a second off the pace so we need quite a big change to be able to come through,” he said. “We’ll see what we are able to do.”

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