Marko uneasy after Friday: RB21 “not very comfortable” as Norris sets Abu Dhabi pace
Red Bull walked out of Friday in Abu Dhabi with more questions than answers and a McLaren in their mirrors that just won’t go away.
Max Verstappen ended both practice sessions second to Lando Norris, and while Fridays tend to be noisy with programs and fuel loads, the tone from Red Bull’s camp was unmistakably restrained. The RB21 looked a touch stubborn, especially in the parts that usually make Verstappen purr.
“He straight away came and said the car’s understeering, it was always a little bit bouncing,” Helmut Marko said after FP2. “We have another session, and hopefully we go in the right direction. I wouldn’t say it’s alarming, but it’s not a very comfortable situation.”
The headline gap? Sector 3. The tight, technical final part of Yas Marina is where McLaren — Norris in particular — found time, and where Red Bull lost it. On long runs the picture didn’t cheer up much, with Marko admitting tyre drop-off looked “a bit more than at the McLaren, but only on Lando.”
That last qualifier matters. McLaren’s strength on Friday was largely concentrated in the No. 4 car. “It’s mainly Norris, who is quicker, unfortunately, not Piastri. The other way around we would have preferred,” Marko quipped.
Fridays are data days, and Red Bull’s been excellent this year at turning them into gains overnight. The team’s routine is to iron out balance snags, sharpen front-end bite and bring Verstappen a car that lets him attack kerbs and rotation points in the low-speed. This time, the RB21’s front won’t quite lean in, and the bouncing mention suggests they’re juggling ride heights and aero platform around Yas Marina’s changing track evolution.
There’s also the small matter of the championship arithmetic. With the title on the line, Red Bull could do with some orange-and-black disruption on Sunday — not McLaren orange, the other kind. “A Norris podium would eliminate Verstappen’s chance of the title,” Marko conceded, before adding, not entirely convincingly: “Am I a Ferrari and Mercedes fan this weekend? I don’t see any one of them is quick enough, yeah, but maybe they find something tomorrow.”
Inside the garage, the pressure valve falls partly on the other car. Yuki Tsunoda didn’t run FP1 and, Marko noted, isn’t on precisely the same spec as Verstappen, but the expectation is clear. “He has to be more close, that’s clear. They are not on the same specification, it’s not much difference, but it is more different. He was not in FP1 so I hope we can find his pace tomorrow.”
The jobs list for Red Bull overnight isn’t complicated, just critical: clean up front-end response to cure the understeer, settle the car’s platform over bumps and kerbs in the final sector, and massage tyre life so Verstappen can lean on the rear without paying for it five laps later. If they nail that, a familiar story may yet unfold on Saturday.
The complicating factor is how planted Norris looked everywhere that matters. McLaren’s recent upgrades have lived in low-speed and traction zones, and Yas Marina’s stop-start corners reward exactly that. If the track rubbers in further and the temperature swing into qualifying favours McLaren’s window, Red Bull can’t count on a late swing.
That said, Verstappen’s Abu Dhabi record speaks for itself, and he rarely lets a car remain grumpy for long. Give him a front end he trusts in Sector 3 and the lap time tends to appear as if by muscle memory.
It’s been a season where the margins have mattered. Friday suggested those margins currently live at the end of the lap — and they’re painted papaya. Red Bull’s task overnight is to move them back.
