etusch wrote: ↑06 Jun 2020, 15:39
Helmut Marko, motorsport consultant of Red Bull, confirmed that they are preparing a completely new vehicle for the Austrian GP.
Helmut Marko stated that they are preparing important updates about RB16 and that they will have a different vehicle in Austria.
"Normally we are strong in the middle of the season, not at the beginning of the season, and now we start the season in the middle of the year. After the test, we will go to a completely different level in Austria compared to the vehicle we have. There are also gains on the engine side."
"Honda has continued to develop its power unit, and the RB16 will have some updates that we have not had so far."
https://tr.motorsport.com/f1/news/marko ... k/4802268/
Hm...I think that's a bit over the place and a bit lost in translation. This is what he said on RTL:
Question:
Is it possible for Max to get the Triple in Austria?
# [the past 2 seasons] give them confidence, he admits that Merc is not that strong on this track and always had problems here
# the competitive order is pretty much unknown, because during testing everything is smoke and mirror
# during testing they saw that Ferrari was not on the same level as Red Bull and Mercedes, but on the other hand, the don't know, if Ferrari gained or found some performance in the last couple of weeks
# the RB16's performance is a bit of an unknown, because they will arrive with a version of untested updates and they skipped 2 steps [to get the correct understanding what he meant: because there was no racing they obviously skipped two steps which were part of the normal development programme. Of course the car will be different to the one that would have been raced in Australia, but this would have been the case anyway at this point of time. He didn't mention in no way, that they will bring a "completely new vehicle" as quoted above]
# they think the midfield teams may get a bit closer, but won't be contenders for victories
Question:
How realistic is the title for Max this year?
# they have worked for a long time to achieve this goal, but had a lot of setbacks
# with Honda they have now a solid PU-partner
# they have learned from their mistakes. A big problem was their competitiveness which was only top by the middle of the season. And this year they start in the middle of the season and their preperations were much better.
# Merc, HAM are clear favorites for the title, but he thinks Red Bull is the first and a serious contender [to Merc]