Marco: We cannot explain this degradation of rubber

In Austria, Max Verstappen and his Red Bull Racing team were unable to match the speed of Charles Leclerc behind the wheel of a Ferrari F1-75 because the tires of the reigning world champion’s car were malfunctioning. During the race, the Dutchman complained about the increased degradation and unstable grip on the track.

“I don’t understand why she’s holding the track one lap and not the next,” he radioed to his race engineer. In part, Verstappen was lucky as he only finished second thanks to the retirement of Carlos Sainz, or else the Ferrari drivers could have given their team a victorious double.

Helmut Marko, Red Bull motorsport adviser, admitted after the Austrian Grand Prix: “The difficulties on Sunday came as a surprise after the good speeds we were able to achieve on Friday and Saturday. We are dealing with the problem of intense rubber degradation, which we cannot explain.

We were even more surprised by the slow pace on the last set of rubber and the increased wear. We don’t understand what this is about, but I hope we can figure out the causes of the problems. Perhaps the point is not only that the track temperature was lower on Sunday, but also that it rained heavily overnight and in the morning, washing away a layer of used rubber from the surface of the track.

But we are happy that we took second place. In addition, we were able to set the fastest lap, which allowed us to keep losses to a minimum.”

Like Ferrari, only one car made it to the finish line for Red Bull Racing, but Sergio Pérez’s retirement was linked to damage to his RB18 after making contact with George Russell’s Mercedes on the opening lap of the race.

Marco commented this: “Of course it was unpleasant, because even before the start we told Perez that in the 4th corner you cannot attack on the outer radius! There is no need to comment on such incidents at the start of the race.