Max Verstappen laments ‘a bad day’ at Emilia Romagna Grand Prix

This was not the start Red Bull wanted in Imola

As far as Fridays go, it could have been a lot better for Max Verstappen and Red Bull at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

Despite bringing a host of upgrades to Imola, the defending Formula 1 Drivers’ Champion struggled during Friday’s dual practice sessions. Verstappen was fifth-fastest in Friday’s first practice session, and only managed a P7 in FP2.

Verstappen was frustrated throughout both practice sessions, veering off track multiple times in FP1 and expressing his discomfort with the upgraded RB20 over the radio to his team during FP2.

Following the second session, Verstappen told F1.com that Red Bull is “severely off pace” at this point in Imola.

“A difficult day,” Verstappen admitted to F1.com. “[It was] just difficult to get a good balance, and [I was] just not really feeling comfortable in the car. Moving around a lot, it’s very easy to lose the car, so [there are] a few things that we have to look at because today [was] just bad, just not comfortable.”

Verstappen’s lack of comfort is likely an unwelcome feeling in Red Bull’s garage, given the host of upgrades the team brought to Imola for the RB20. Red Bull installed a number of upgraded components to their challenger, including upgrades to the front wing, the floor edge, the rear corner, the floor body, and the nose.

According to the team’s “Car Presentation Submission” to the FIA, the upgraded front wing works as follows: “More load has been extracted from the flap by extending the chord length. In changing the moving flap geometry, the fixed flap elements into the nosebox had to be revised as the parts cannot be treated in a modular fashion. The endplate leading edge revision improves the stability in yaw.”

Following Friday’s sessions, Verstappen also noted difficulties on longer race simulations.

“Also the long run was really bad, so definitely a few things that we have to improve if we want to be competitive tomorrow,” added Verstappen.

The driver took a rather “glass half-full” approach when summarizing the day.

“I guess it can’t be worse than what we had today,” concluded Verstappen. “We’ll look at a few things that we can do better for tomorrow, but it looks a bit like the others took a bit of a step forward, and from our side just a bad day.”