Red Bull engineering chief Paul Monaghan says damage from Max Verstappen’s off during FP2 at the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix has given the team “enough to keep us busy”.
Max Verstappen ran wide late on in FP2 and bounced over a gravel trap at high speed, shedding pieces of floor as he went.
The incident brought a premature end to a session that saw him in sixth, after he’d been P3 in FP1.
His new team-mate Isack Hadjar, meanwhile, had a solid first day with the senior outfit, taking fourth in the first session and ninth in the second.
Asked about the impact of the Verstappen off, Monaghan said: “I’ll say there’s enough to keep us busy. It’s recoverable. It’s nothing that drastic. It’s a bit of a thump, so we’ll tidy it up and go again.”
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT
Red Bull “competitive straight off” with new Ford-backed power unit
Monaghan agreed that otherwise it had been a positive day for the team, as it put more miles on its in-house-built Ford-backed power unit.
“Fantastic,” he said. “Brand-new engine of our own, new car, new rules, and both cars went out the pitlane at the start of P1 and both were competitive straight off.
“Isack is getting his head round it, is quite forthright, seems to know what he wants. Max is typically a somewhat driven, competitive soul. The car’s reasonably well balanced.
“We had a couple of little issues in P2. So that hindered us a little bit, but I think our main objective tomorrow is to sort out how we get laps out of this car in whatever, whether it’s qualifying or the race situation, and how we learn how to repeatedly do that and get it right.”
Expanding on the PU reliability he said: “The value of going round and round, especially with the new car, new rules, is pretty obvious. If we don’t run it, we don’t get knowledge. But what a fantastic achievement – brand spanking new engine and it just runs. It’s wonderful.”
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT
Monaghan conceded that it was still too early to have a clear picture of where the top teams lie in the pecking order following Friday’s running at Albert Park.
“I wouldn’t say so, not yet,” he noted. “If I said to you how much fuel is in each car, you probably don’t know. Equally you don’t know how much is in ours. I can’t tell you what level of engine performance is being deployed by our opposition, if it’s variable for them.
“Did they get their deployment correct? Were the tyres in the best condition possible? There’s many things we can improve upon for tomorrow. It’s just whether that improvement is good enough to take us to the front or whether we line up behind some our charming opposition.”
Returning to the scene of his nightmare first weekend with Racing Bulls last year, in which he crashed on the sighting lap, Hadjar professed himself pleased with progress.
“Reliability has been good,” the Frenchman told Crash.net. “In terms of consistency, every lap in FP2 has been quite difficult in terms of deployment and everything. But we’ll look into it. It cannot go smooth on day one.”
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT
Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT
He added: “This year it feels like not enough practice going into qualifying. There’s still so much unknown. I wish I had more laps to understand what is going on with the PU.”
Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter