Having shed 6kgs, an improving Red Bull remains confident of achieving the minimum weight limit within the next couple of months.
It’s Springtime, certainly in F1’s (former?) European heartland, and already people are looking to shed some of the excess weight put on over the winter in order to look their very best come the summer.
The same goes for F1 teams, though they needed to be in shape and toned-up for the start of the season in Melbourne.
Sadly, a couple of teams, namely Williams and Red Bull, have had trouble shedding those extra kilos, and while this might not compromise their look it is certainly harming their on-track performance.
The Austrian team had shed around 6kgs by the time the championship resumed in Miami, and is looking to lose more in the coming months.
“We have to wait a little bit longer, just a little step for Montreal,” said technical director Pierre Wache. “I think there will be another step. I don’t know when, but we will have a weight reduction happening for maybe Austria.”
Miami, marked a – sort of – step forward for the Austrian team, with Max Verstappen claiming he could finally see light at the end of the tunnel following a tough start to the season.
Team boss, Laurent Mekies, confirmed that, despite finishing a distant fifth, Verstappen is correct in believing that progress has been made.
“There is a definitive step forward,” he said. “We left Japan 1.2 seconds away from pole, China 1.0 seconds away from pole.
“The competition was not going to wait for us with their updates, ” he added. “So everybody has updated their cars,” he continued, Red Bull having arrived in Miami with a raft of upgrades including new sidepods, floor and a revised steering system, “but certainly we knew that on top of the development race, we had to solve some of our issues, and we knew there was lap time in it.
“So, to see us qualifying six-tenths away from (Sprint) pole on Friday and less than two-tenths away from pole on Saturday is a big indication of the size of the progress,” he insisted. “Compared to where we were, it’s something much better than anything we have been able to show this year.”