Too early to say, but it does seem that the new flexible parts rule clarification could have been aimed at their car
Anything that injects a little unpredictably into the back end of the season is fine by me. Likely penalty incoming for VER too.
Possibly two or three. Could you imagine a three place penalty times three?? Max in 20th position?? That would be a bad day.
The car is the same as last week.
You have to remember that this is a track that verstappen really doesn’t like: last year’s race at Singapore was also his worst.
Usually verstappen drives ~3 tenths faster than Perez, which, if he did that this week, would also put him up there…IMO this is less of a case that the car is worse and more that verstappen isn’t able to get 100% from his car.
If it is the Flexi rule clarification then they would have know about it in advance and have had time to make changes to work around it.
The car is so bad in quali today it’s like they had no time to prepare for a rule change announced the same weekend as implemented, just seems odd that RB of all people would be so caught out like this as the change in performance is massive.
If Max gets a significant penalty for impeding then I would expect a pit lane start so they can work on setup. If they don’t then it’s not a setup issue but a car issue. Horner insists nothing changed yet if it’s not setup then what else can it be?
If it is the Flexi rule clarification
Neither the new floor nor the gear shift have anything to do with the wings. I think it’s just coincidence. I think it was a feedback loop of getting nervous after initially getting the updates wrong and then panicking more and more.
Wasn’t the Flexi stuff also the front wing/nose?
If you lack downforce then the amount of power you can put down in corners is also impacted, which you can address by changing the map with earlier upshifts.
Checo was complaining about lack of power at the start of the corner he had his spin that then came in late, like they were cutting power.
Otherwise it would be very odd to change the engine map unless they are worried about Ferrari style PU rule breaches and toned it down. They had enough pace to just put on new PUs, take the penalty and still win, so I don’t buy the PU is at risk of going.
Max said that the car felt better at the end of FP3 on F1TV (before they did adjustments for the qualification), so it’s probably a setup issue.
Fp3 they reverted the new floor edges for the old ones as well
I don’t think it’s the flexibility of the wings (or lack of it) that was the issue. They would have benefited primarily at top speed, and there’s not much at Singapore that’s top speed dependent (see Williams). The Red Bull car, although very quick, has been great in cornering and today he couldn’t hook it up in the corners. I think they just had the wrong setup for the car and couldn’t get it figured out. Red Bull should have made it into Q3 regardless and had the pace to do so. The tires weren’t in the right zone for either car so Max was sliding everywhere and Sergio spun. With the new track layout, I still expect a strong showing from Red Bull on race day. Their car is kind to tires and they definitely don’t have the 11th (for now) and 13th fastest cars in race pace. Either way, really exciting qualifying today!
If they’re sliding around that much, then that won’t be good for their tyres though. Let us have some.hope
Ha! Hey there is hope for sure. Red Bull in their worst form of the season. Who have you got winning tomorrow? I like George Russell’s chances. Ferrari is too hard on tires to hold him off for the entire race in my opinion. Everything is out the window if it rains though….
Anyone but Max and I’ll be happy
If it is Max I will be happy.
If it is a good race, I will be happy
Q3 was so much more fun without Max.
it’s the same car as in Monza. The new TD has no impact.
Time will tell if this is just a poor weekend (barring the race result tomorrow) or if the lack of grip/handling continues for the rest of the season.
It was already known that this weekend would be a very difficult weekend for them.
I think this session has proven that to be the case, exactly.
This is going to get crazy the coming few races. Angry brazen Max will make his return :).
Aged like milk, it was too early to say.
