Red Bull faces troubled Friday at Suzuka as balance issues hamper performance

Red Bull endured a difficult start to the Japanese Grand Prix weekend, with both Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar struggling for balance, grip, and overall consistency across Friday’s practice sessions.

The RB22 appeared unpredictable throughout the day, leaving the reigning Constructors’ Champions with significant overnight work to do if they are to challenge at the front.

In FP1, Hadjar reported that his car was pulling to one side, while Verstappen was seen wrestling with the car through several corners. The instability continued into FP2, where Verstappen only narrowly scraped into the top 10. Hadjar, meanwhile, remained outside the top 10 in both sessions, unable to find a comfortable rhythm.

The team acknowledged that the car is not performing to its usual standards, with upgrades still requiring refinement and several underlying issues yet to be fully understood.

Max Verstappen finished P7 in FP1 (1:32.457) and P10 in FP2 (1:31.509). The Dutchman described a day of extremes as the team struggled to find a workable setup: “I had two opposites today and we went from one extreme to another, which ultimately affected our lap time.

"We made a few changes in between sessions: we tried to crack one thing and then something different came up, which was quite difficult to solve.

"We just need to understand our issues a bit more and where they are coming from. We were lacking a bit of balance and grip and now there is quite a lot of work to be done to understand why we are having these problems.

"It is also about understanding why we are that far off on Sector 1 and in the medium to high speed. We will work on this overnight, but I don’t think it is a particularly easy fix."

Verstappen’s comments highlight the scale of the challenge Red Bull faces — particularly in Suzuka’s demanding high‑speed sections.

Isack Hadjar ended the day P13 in FP1 (1:32.803) and P15 in FP2 (1:31.759). The French rookie echoed Verstappen’s concerns: “Today wasn't our best day, we struggled with the balance and grip in both sessions and that made it hard to put together the laps we would've wanted.

"For FP2 we made a step up in the feel of the car but were a little further away in lap time. I'm not as comfortable in the car as I'd like to be, but I'm sure that ahead of tomorrow we can turn things around and get ourselves in better shape for Qualifying.”

Hadjar’s early‑session complaint about the car pulling to one side only added to the team’s list of issues to diagnose.

Upgrades working, but other problems holding the car back
Paul Monaghan, Red Bull’s Chief Engineer of Car Engineering, offered a candid assessment of the team’s struggles: "You can see from our pace that the car isn’t performing to the usual standards that we set ourselves and the overall lap time is not good.

"It has been quite challenging, but we’ve identified some things that are wrong with the car and we particularly need to work to correct the balance and the grip. Now it is a case of confirming all the issues and understanding them enough to be able to make effective changes ahead of tomorrow.

"Geometrically, the upgrades we brought are quite big so thank you to everyone at the factory for getting them here as that was a mighty effort.

"These are working but now we have to fix the other aspects of the car. Like always, we will try and figure out what has gone wrong and work to understand the issues, fix them and send the car out tomorrow."