Red Bull is pinning its hopes on winning Formula 1’s 2024 Dutch Grand Prix on set-up changes making Max Verstappen’s RB20 “calmer”, after Lando Norris beat him in Zandvoort qualifying.
Motorsport advisor Helmut Marko believes the 0.356s gap between Norris and Verstappen was inflated by a slide for the Dutchman at Turn 11 on his final Q3 lap, which cost him momentum through the next corner. The Austrian insisted changes made by Red Bull after FP2 would pay the team back in the race.
In the only dry long-running of the weekend that took place in FP2, Norris had shown McLaren to have a 0.555s average advantage on what are expected to be the key medium-compound tyres on Sunday, while Verstappen had edged to a 0.044s advantage when they tried the softs for a stint later in the session.
The softs could yet be an important race tyre if track temperatures do not increase for what is predicted to be a dry grand prix.
“After the somewhat bumpy practice sessions, I think we went in the right direction,” Marko told Red Bull’s in-house TV station, ServusTV, in a reference to how Verstappen had been just fifth in FP2.
“And it still looked very good up to Turn 12 [on Verstappen’s final Q3 lap]. He lost one and a half to two tenths there, hence the relatively large gap for this track.
“But the car as a whole is calmer. That also means for the race that tyre wear will probably be better now.
“At least we have split the McLaren cars. We are satisfied, even if not completely.”
Verstappen, however, was more downbeat – suggesting the size of his qualifying defeat (where his assessment will not have included his Turns 11-12 moment as the Dutchman had not at this stage seen the full picture in Red Bull’s debrief) was a sign of things to come.
“We’ll give it a good go,” Verstappen said in post-qualifying parc ferme. “But of course when you are more than 0.3s behind in qualifying I think we have to be realistic. I’ll just try to have a good race tomorrow.”
McLaren has two cars to deploy in strategic battles with Red Bull on Sunday as Oscar Piastri will start third behind Verstappen at a track where overtaking will be tough, with Sergio Perez behind George Russell down in fifth.
Nevertheless, Marko called Perez’s result “one of his best qualifying sessions in a long time”.
Marko added: “Of course, if he holds this position after the start, it's always better from a strategy point of view when you have two cars relatively close together.”
Additional reporting by Markus Luettgens
