In an attempt to get past his grid penalty from the Belgian Grand Prix, Max Verstappen is looking to enhance the balance in his Red Bull.
Verstappen will, at worst, start eleventh after receiving a 10-place demotion at Spa for using his fifth internal combustion engine of the season.
Red Bull used Verstappen to take a grid penalty at Spa in 2022 and 2023, winning both races. However, as usual, the trade-offs at Spa are proving to be challenging.
The McLaren pair outperformed Verstappen in the second practice session, where the cars needed strong downforce for the lap-long sweeps of sector two, but low downforce in sectors one and three. Verstappen finished first and third in the two sessions.
Verstappen is still aiming for this balance in front of the expected rainy qualifying in the Ardennes Forest.
“We made a lot of attempts. Verstappen stated, “You have a very long sector two where you need the corner speed, and sectors one and three where you want peak speed.”
That being said, striking the correct balance is really tough. We can now analyse the data. I believe we got off to a good start today.
We have some things to consider, particularly in light of the modifications we made, as the second session was a little less.
“We have to tweak a few things, so we will start a little bit further back due to a grid penalty because we changed the engine.”
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