Oscar Piastri saw similarities to the Japanese Grand Prix after Max Verstappen beat the McLaren drivers to pole position for the British Grand Prix.
Suzuka and Silverstone share some of the fastest corners on the F1 calendar and the championship leader said that is where Red Bull have an advantage over them at the moment.
“For me, the biggest surprise is how each car is generating their lap time,” said Piastri on Saturday after qualifying. “You look at the speed traces and they all look completely different, but they end up basically at the same point at the end of the lap. So that’s been quite interesting to get our heads around.
“I’m not that surprised that Max is quick here. It’s quite similar to Suzuka, similar conditions to Suzuka. Clearly, they found some pace from [Friday].”
At Suzuka, Verstappen resisted the McLaren drivers’ efforts to take the lead off him, but Piastri expects a more competitive race today.
“There wasn’t a whole lot [of opportunity] in Japan. Let’s see: I think the tyres will be a bit more interesting than they were in Japan potentially.
“Also with the different strengths of different cars, we’ll see which seems to be the better compromise tomorrow. I hope so. If it’s good for one overtake, then I’d be pretty happy.”
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Verstappen has harnessed Red Bull’s strong performance in the high speed corners by trimming the rear wing angle on his car to improve its performance on the straights. Piastri said he was impressed by the RB21’s performance.
“What’s been impressive is some of the high-speed performance that they can continue with, even with the light downforce,” he said. “Of course, I hope that the higher downforce [on the McLaren] works a bit better in a few areas, but honestly, we really won’t know until tomorrow.
“It’s also been interesting with other teams, it’s not always just been that the higher the downforce you have, the quicker you are in all the corners. Some of the corners we’re still slower than the Red Bull and Max. So, it’s not that straightforward, but I think it’s going to be an interesting thing to see tomorrow.”
Piastri’s team mate Lando Norris said Verstappen’s maximum speed on the straight with his lower rear wing angle could be enough to prevent McLaren attacking him with DRS.
“It’s hard, honestly, to know until you get behind and you have the dirty air and DRS and things like that,” he said. “To be honest, at the minute our DRS speed probably just about matches Max’s speed. So I think it’ll be tough because we’ll probably catch him in the high speed [corners], but we just won’t really close much when we open the DRS.”
With a chance of wet conditions during the race, Norris is hopeful McLaren will have chances to fight Verstappen for victory.
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“Between everyone, we’re fast and slow in different places. [If] you look at Red Bull Ring and you say Red Bull Ring is high-speed, but compared to Silverstone it’s quite medium-speed. Here is definitely high-speed, and it’s probably highlighted a few more of our weaknesses.
“We’ve performed very well in the slower and medium-speed tracks, some of the higher speed, we’re not bad, but we always seem to lose out to Max and the Red Bull, like Oscar said, in Japan, here, things like that. So there’s clearly things to work on. But I think going into the race tomorrow there’s still plenty of opportunity for us.”
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