{"id":39551,"date":"2025-08-02T08:24:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T08:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/39551\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T08:24:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T08:24:13","slug":"red-bull-telemetry-data-unearths-big-rb21-blow-with-key-weakness-found","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/39551\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Bull telemetry data unearths big RB21 blow with key weakness found"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the first two practice sessions at the Hungaroring, Red Bull Racing finds itself in serious trouble \u2014 with their best result being Yuki Tsunoda\u2019s P9 and a gap of nearly 0.9 seconds to the top in FP2.<\/p>\n

Despite their recent dip in form, it\u2019s been a long time since we\u2019ve seen the Austrian team struggle this much on track. What are the reasons behind this drop, and what can we expect for the rest of the weekend? The telemetry data holds the answers.<\/p>\n

Red Bull in trouble at the Hungaroring<\/p>\n

Throughout the entire F1 2025 season, Max Verstappen and Red Bull<\/a> have been the only real threat to McLaren\u2019s growing dominance. On several occasions, we\u2019ve seen Verstappen secure wins and even pole positions despite being in a clearly inferior car. His precision on track is astonishing, and it\u2019s been incredible to watch what the Dutchman can extract from the RB21.<\/p>\n

But Red Bull\u2019s form has been inconsistent for some time now, and perhaps it\u2019s no surprise that Hungary is the circuit where that form has taken a sharp downturn.<\/p>\n

This is a track that would have suited their car two years ago \u2014 but not the one they\u2019re running today. The layout, with mostly slow corners and only one real straight, doesn\u2019t allow Red Bull to exploit the straight-line speed advantage they\u2019ve relied on so far.<\/p>\n

On such a technical track, where you need as much front-end stability as rear grip, having a well-balanced car is critical \u2014 and that\u2019s been Red Bull\u2019s major weakness with its RB21.<\/p>\n

Anticipating potential issues on this type of circuit, Red Bull engineers brought a new front wing design to Hungary aimed at generating more front-end downforce and reducing understeer.<\/p>\n

During the sessions, in addition to throwing a towel out of his car, Verstappen repeatedly complained about a lack of grip \u2014 which, judging by the data, was very real.<\/p>\n

For instance, it\u2019s been ages since we\u2019ve seen Verstappen trailing his teammate in any session, let alone being over 1.1 seconds off the pace. But what does that gap look like on track?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Verstappen was losing about 0.4 seconds per sector compared to McLaren\u2019s Lando Norris, except for the first sector where the gap was a slightly smaller 0.35s.<\/p>\n

Looking at apex speeds during their fastest laps, Norris is faster across every part of the circuit.<\/p>\n

The most noticeable differences come at Turn 5 and in the final three corners. The delta line for both Verstappen and Tsunoda in these corners shows a clear drop-off \u2014 it seems that by the time they reach this section of the track, the RB21 has already overworked its tires and grip levels drop dramatically at the end of the lap.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Both drivers lose nearly as much time in just these corners as they do over the rest of the lap.<\/p>\n

More tech updates from Formula 1:<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0How Williams are looking to stay one step ahead with new FW47 updates<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Have recent updates stunted Mercedes\u2019 W16 progress?<\/a><\/p>\n

Another key comparison from Verstappen\u2019s and Norris\u2019s laps is top speed \u2014 surprisingly, McLaren is faster in this area. This might be the first time we\u2019ve seen this all season.<\/p>\n

Norris was quicker before Turn 1, again before Turn 2, and even on the short stretch before Turn 12. There\u2019s a good chance Red Bull wasn\u2019t using their power unit at full deployment.<\/p>\n

This is also the first time that Yuki Tsunoda has been faster than his teammate after a practice session.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

At the start of the lap, Tsunoda hit higher speeds on the straights. His better runs through Turns 1 and 2, plus higher top speeds before Turn 4, gave him an advantage of about two-tenths in Sector 1.<\/p>\n

In Sector 2, both drivers were nearly equal, with a slight edge for the Japanese driver. That pattern continued into the final sector \u2014 especially in the tricky last three corners \u2014 where Tsunoda seemsedto be more comfortable handling the unstable RB21.<\/p>\n

What about long runs?<\/p>\n

During FP2 race simulations, Verstappen was quicker than both Tsunoda and other midfield drivers \u2014 but critically, the gap to McLaren was still significant.<\/p>\n

The four-time world champion was, on average, about half a second slower per lap than Oscar Piastri, who ran his stint on similarly old tires and completed a similar number of laps. Tsunoda, on the other hand, was roughly 0.3s per lap slower than Max.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If things don\u2019t improve before qualifying, we may be in for one of Red Bull\u2019s weakest races this season in terms of raw performance. However, if there\u2019s one thing we\u2019ve learned, it\u2019s to never write off Max Verstappen or Red Bull \u2014 not until the final flag.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s see how the engineers will use FP3 to try and turn things around, and whether we\u2019ll see a completely different RB21 when it matters most \u2014 in qualifying.<\/p>\n

Read next:\u00a0Chief McLaren threat steps forward with Hungarian GP data uncovered<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After the first two practice sessions at the Hungaroring, Red Bull Racing finds itself in serious trouble \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,3874,813,816,818,32451,918,85],"class_list":["post-39551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-f1-features","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-home-page","tag-hungarian-grand-prix","tag-red-bull","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}