MARK HUGHES: VERSTAPPEN’S UPGRADE VERDICT HAS OMINOUS UNDERTONE.
The crucial gap here around a sweltering Hungaroring on Friday is the 0.243-second margin by which Lando Norris headed Max Verstappen in FP2 in their respective qualifying simulations.
The McLaren is fast – probably faster than Mercedes and Ferrari – but it’s probably not the fastest.
Verstappen got a little crossed up as he exited Turn 2. It looks nothing, a blink-brief snap. But it costs him a lot of time. Not only in that corner but through Turn 3 and in the drag up the straight to 4. He entered Turn 2 already 0.112s ahead of Norris. By the time he arrived at Turn 4 he was 0.248s behind.
On every other straight the Red Bull is faster than the McLaren. It was only slower on this one because of that snap of oversteer, which ended up costing Verstappen 0.36s.
It was a very promising opening day for the new-spec Red Bull, with bodywork designed to favour higher downforce tracks. But Sergio Perez with the old bodywork (but new front wing) was quick too, fourth fastest (albeit 0.224s off Verstappen’s compromised lap).
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He then proceeded to set the fastest long-run average of all, a couple of tenths faster than Verstappen on the same medium compound C4 tyre. But that difference was purely down to how hard they each hit the early part of their stints, as they tried between them to find the optimum level of tyre management around a track which imposes heavy thermal degradation of the rears.
Perez began much more aggressively at around 0.9s faster than Verstappen. Over seven or eight laps, Perez’s approach proved faster. But a typical opening stint length in what should be a two-stop race will be more like 18-20 laps.
Perez 1m23.939s (6 laps, medium)
Norris 1m24.146s (8 laps, hard)
Verstappen 1m24.221s (7 laps, medium)
Russell 1m24.741s (5 laps, medium)
Sainz 1m24.705s (10 laps, medium)
Hamilton 1m24.796s (9 laps, soft)
Piastri 1m24.935s (4 laps, hard)
The bigger point being that Red Bull looks in formidable shape here. Potentially fastest over a single lap and Perez quickest on a simulated race stint. That’s before even taking into account that Red Bull typically runs a lower engine mode than the Mercedes and Ferrari runners on Friday. But that may not be the case here, given how power-insensitive the track is and how Red Bull will be surely looking to maximise power unit life now that Verstappen is on his final unpenalised engine.
That being the case, could McLaren – or Mercedes or Ferrari – challenge? McLaren very often takes a low key approach to Fridays and if it’s done so with fuel loads here, then perhaps.
