Formula 1 moves to Paul Ricard to kick off the second half of the season with the French Grand Prix. Red Bull is currently leading both the championships by a fair margin. However, they have not been able to win the last two races in Silverstone and at home in Austria. Not only that, Ferrari has been extremely good in the last couple of outings, with a race win each from Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc. One of the major factors why Verstappen failed in winning the race at the Red Bull Ring was tyre degradation. The two Ferraris pushed Max hard as he was in the lead, forcing the Dutchman to drive faster. As a result, Max’s RB18 caused more tyre degradation compared to the two F1-75s, allowing Leclerc to get ahead during the final few laps and click his third win of the season.
Thus, the extremely hot conditions could pose a big challenge for Red Bull in terms of tyre management during the upcoming weekend. The temperature is expected to go beyond 30 degrees at Paul Ricard, which could play into Ferrari’s hands, given they have a slower tyre degradation in their F1-75. Meanwhile, the F1 official tyre manufacturer, Pirelli, will be bringing harder tyre compounds for the upcoming race. The Italian tyre maker will provide C2, C3, and C4 compounds for Paul Ricard compared to the C3, C4, and C5 compounds in Austria.
Max Verstappen Warns Red Bull About Tyre Management
While the compound change could help Red Bull, Max Verstappen was unwilling to keep his fate on chance as he talked about the importance of tyre management. Max won the race last year while his teammate Sergio Perez finished third in France. The Dutchman said Red Bull had a good result in 2021 in France. The track has a lot of technical and high-speed corners at the end. Thus, tyre management would be a key for Red Bull because of the hot weather conditions during the weekend. “I’m looking forward to another week where we can improve on our performance in Austria and learn from our last result,” the reigning world champ added.
However, Ferrari could also have some issues, which could get worse with the heat. The Italian outfit had to deal with an array of power unit failures which have cost them a lot of crucial points, especially under hotter conditions. Moreover, Sainz will start at the back of the grid as he has taken a new engine after his engine caught fire in Austria. Thus, Ferrari will have to take care of their reliability issues if they want to finish ahead of Red Bull in France.