Red Bull technical director Pierre Wach\u00e9 has identified promising signs for the team after a strong opening day at the Sepang International Circuit, despite brutal conditions during Friday practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Max Verstappen topped FP1 with a 1:37.520s, before Isack Hadjar backed that up with second place in FP2, just 0.099s shy of Charles Leclerc’s benchmark time. Verstappen rounded out the second session in fourth.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The four-time F1 champion’s FP1 time, however, was the quickest of the day, and unusually he was one of only two drivers not to use a set of soft compound tyres in the second session.\u00a0\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The timesheets came against a backdrop of extreme heat, with ambient temperatures exceeding 33 degrees Celsius and track temperatures climbing to almost 62 degrees early in FP2.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The circuit, hosting Formula 1 for the first time since 2017, was also notably dusty and low on grip due to the lack of recent rubbering-in, with the abrasive original asphalt from nine years ago now sitting alongside a newer resurfaced section between Turns 6 and 12, creating inconsistent grip levels across a single lap.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Wach\u00e9 described the session as a steep challenge for both car and tyres, with the key opportunity for Red Bull lying in the learning process the team can extract from such a demanding and unfamiliar track.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“It was very warm, very difficult for the car and for the tyres,” Wach\u00e9 said after FP2. “And also, there had not been much running on the track before our sessions.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“The track was quite dusty, and the grip evolved a lot, and the temperature was very high; track [temperature] reached 60 degrees, which we have never achieved with this type of [F1] car yet.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“It was difficult. The balance of the car is also tricky, but it’s a learning process for the weekend.”\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tVerstappen bucking the trend<\/p>\n
Verstappen’s FP2 programme notably omitted any running on the soft compound, a decision Wach\u00e9 put down to prioritising race preparation over outright pace.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“The main priority was to do a long run on medium that we didn’t do this morning [in FP1],” he added to explain Verstappen’s lack of soft tyre usage.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“Then, with the risk of rain in the middle of FP2, we didn’t want to risk getting the long run in, and we switched to [it] very quickly. After that, we didn’t have time to do the soft run.”\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Hadjar, meanwhile, was heard complaining over team radio about brake oscillations during his running.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Wach\u00e9 linked the issue to the unique demands the Sepang layout places on the braking system, with its two long straights feeding into heavy braking zones at Turn 1 and Turn 15 that place simultaneous strain on brake cooling and tyre thermal management.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“He had a difficult time with energy management and how you use the brakes on this track,” Wach\u00e9 explained. “But hopefully we will sort out this problem.”\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red Bull technical director Pierre Wach\u00e9 has identified promising signs for the team after a strong opening day…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,827,817,830,828,831,829,826,813,816,823,825,824,822,85],"class_list":["post-914193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motorsport","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914193","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=914193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}