How Red Bull Turned Around Its Disconnected Rally Car

From an undriveable vehicle at the start of the day to securing pole on the road at the conclusion of it, Red Bull achieved a remarkable metamorphosis in Qatar

Red Bull staged one of the most remarkable turnarounds of the season in Qatar on Saturday when it moved from a “terrible” vehicle in the sprint to pole on the road in qualifying.

World champion Max Verstappen had been left astonished by precisely how horrible his RB20 had felt in the sprint race – as he and team-mate Sergio Perez had tracked a disconnection problem between how the front and rear axles were behaving.

After coming home in eighth position, behind the Haas of Nico Hulkenberg, Verstappen was left scrambling to find ways to convey how horrible the vehicle had felt.

"I just had no grasp. The balance is terrible,” he told Viaplay. “On cold tyres you suffer even more from that. It felt like a rally car.

"I think I would have been better off racing with my father Jos at Spa in a rally - we would have had a greater chance of being competitive over there, I suppose. It's extremely horrible, it was undriveable.

"We can modify a lot of things [before qualifying], but we can't address the situation. I don't know. We will modify certain things, but I don't anticipate miracles."

That miracle did occur, however, as in the slightly more than three hours there was between the completion of the sprint and the start of qualifying, the RB20 was converted into a new beast.

Intense effort by the engineers both at Red Bull’s Milton Keynes facility and on site in Qatar paid benefits as the squad identified the route that would finally produce the stunning outcome.

That gain did not come from a drastic alteration in wing settings to enhance the balance – which had been ruled out when Perez tested a more loaded front wing at the conclusion of the sprint.

Instead, it was all down to mechanical settings. Adjustments to the suspension and ride helped give a more compliant platform which increased driver confidence and allowed Verstappen to unleash a lap that put him quickest at the conclusion of it.

Verstappen, who will start the Grand Prix from second after a one-place grid penalty relegated him behind George Russell, stated that neither he nor the team could have predicted exactly how great a stride these adjustments would make.

“After the sprint it didn't look so good,” he remarked. “But I think we also surprised ourselves with how much we found with the set-up. So it's something we have to look at, of course, why that was such a large difference.”

With the vehicle adjustments proving to be fairly tiny, even Verstappen indicated he expected any progress gained would be pretty small.

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“The tweaks were not so big that that made me think 'oh, now suddenly we can compete'. And neither did the team,” he added.

Red Bull has made remarkable progress with the RB20 since hitting its low point at the Italian Grand Prix.

The difficulties there were more aero-related and spurred crucial changes coming in time for the United States Grand Prix which have helped transform the pace subsequently.

Verstappen earned pole for the sprint there, he won in Brazil and he has been fastest again in Qatar here – indicating that its mid-season difficulties look to be a thing of the past.

Asked when he last felt the vehicle to be as fantastic as it is currently, Verstappen said: “That has been a long time ago. Austria, really.

“There the car was really good over one lap, and then in the race not so much. But it was actually the last occasion when I thought 'wow, that was pretty fantastic'. And now, the gap is clearly extremely little, but at least enough to go for pole.”