“So they changed the strategy…” Jan Lammers reveals reason behind Red Bull’s tyre woes in Austria
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Jan Lammers
Red Bull had a weekend below expectations in Austria. Max Verstappen looked strong in the early parts of the weekend, taking pole position, albeit narrowly, and then winning in the sprint race, both times ahead of Charles Leclerc. But perhaps his sprint race victory was more down to Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc’s early battles than pure pace, as in the feature race, he could not keep up.
Even in the sprint race, the gap between him and Leclerc had shrunk rapidly towards the end stages, and this would happen again during the race. By lap 12, Leclerc was able to cut down the lead Verstappen had acquired, and brilliantly overtook him. He overtook Verstappen twice more during the race, each time with much fresher tyres. Verstappen suffered from much worse tyre degradation than the two Ferraris.
Understandably, Red Bull were confused and disappointed by the weekend, with Helmut Marko, Christian Horner, and Verstappen, all criticizing the problem, with Horner calling it ‘strange’, and also disappointed at themselves for not better understanding the tyre wear and the causes for it. However, Jan Lammers believes that he has the answer.
Jan Lammers supports Red Bull ‘Sprint weekends are to partly blame for missing data’
Speaking on the NOS-Formule1 podcast, Jan Lammers gave his reasoning for Red Bull being unprepared for the tyre degradation they suffered. He said: “It is a sprint race weekend. You have a Friday morning where you have a lot to do, there are formalities to tick off. The second practice session is also qualifying. Then you can’t sort anything out.”
He explained that the sprint race on Saturday means there are only two practice sessions for the weekend, and both of them are spent in preparation of the respective events of the day, qualifying and the sprint race, which is why sometimes teams do not have enough time to gather valuable data.
He also ruled out the tyre suppliers themselves: “I’m not so convinced by those comments that Pirelli is always wrong. That is not the case. I never see people just doing what Pirelli says.” he further adds that Pirelli’s projections are made for a ‘normal’ race, without yellow or red flags. Instead he thinks that the blame goes to Red Bull themselves: “They got into the situation where they weren’t going to make it in the normal way anymore. So they changed the strategy. If it was one long race, I am convinced that a one-stop with a yellow tyre and a white tyre was just a fine strategy.”
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Gunaditya Tripathi
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