Max Verstappen, Red Bull, Hungaroring, 2020

Red Bull break curfew overnight to work on car set-ups

2020 Hungarian Grand Prix

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Red Bull broke Formula 1’s curfew on working hours at the Hungaroring following Friday practice to make changes to the set-ups of both cars.

The FIA confirmed Red Bull team members were within the confines of the circuit during the eight-hour period in which work on cars is restricted. Teams are permitted two exceptions to the limit on working hours per season – Red Bull has now used its first ‘joker’.

Red Bull broke the curfew in order to make set-up changes to Max Verstappen and Alexander Albon’s cars, the team advised RaceFans, adding it had not encountered any technical problems with the RB16s.

The team had a difficult start to the third race weekend of the season on Friday. Verstappen was eighth-fastest in first practice, the only dry session of the day, five places ahead of Albon. They intended to use second practice to evaluate several changes to its car, but the heavy rain prevented them from doing so.

“The weather has been hurting us,” Albon admitted yesterday, “as we’re trying to understand the car at a new circuit after two weeks at the Red Bull Ring.

“[First practice] wasn’t ideal and then with the downpour we couldn’t exactly try anything for [second practice].”

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6 comments on “Red Bull break curfew overnight to work on car set-ups”

  1. Just amazing how RB miss the ball for so many consecutive years in a row. It is starting to look like it might be impossible for them to deliver a championship car. Still it could be worse… Huh Ferrari..

    1. All this while pointing finger at their PU manufacturer.

    2. Adam (@rocketpanda)
      18th July 2020, 12:35

      I think Red Bull’s done a better job of building strong cars than Ferrari have managed. But compared to Mercedes it doesn’t seem to matter what anyone else does.

    3. Sadly it is the same every year. Only after Mercedes has run away with the silverware they make a jump in performance big enough to battle the team that switched into relax mode anyway… Frustratingly we won’t get those nice races at the end of the season this year because it will be too short anyway for them to make that jump.

  2. i think a lot of this comes back to how the team run and setup within the team. I look at Merc and I see a very efficient cohesive organization. The other teams are not inefficient just not as efficient.

  3. They intended to use second practice to evaluate several changes to its car, but the heavy rain prevented them from doing so.

    This sounds like a contradiction: on the one hand there was work that would have been started and completed between FP1 and FP2 but wasn’t because of the rain, then because it wasn’t done in the few hours between those sessions the mechanics now have to work all through the night. Hopefully the mechanics will be given better time off to recover for the race than recently reported minimum 8 hours.

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