Red Bull Racing have turned up to the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix with a slew of upgrades for its RB21 — but will they be enough to transform the pace of the car?

Reigning World Champion Max Verstappen doesn’t sound confident after two challenging free practice sessions.

Max Verstappen deems new upgrades ‘not fast enough’

Red Bull Racing has arrived at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix with a new set of upgrades designed to find additional pace.

This weekend, the floor has undergone something of a makeover; the Venturi channels and the lateral edge of the floor have been tweaked to allow for more airflow.

Those changes also resulted in changes to the lower section of the side pods, the beam wing, and the rear ramp section.

The team was clear that the upgrades won’t completely transform the performance of the car, but the hope was at least that the drivers would be more comfortable.

But comfortable the drivers were not. In Free Practice 1, Max Verstappen only managed to set the seventh-fastest time, with teammate Yuki Tsunoda down in 16th.

FP1 was marginally better for the two drivers, who clocked the sixth- and eighth-fastest times. But that isn’t good enough.

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Speaking to media after Free Practice 2, Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic about those upgrades.

When asked if he felt any improvement with these upgrades, he responded, “We tried a lot of bits.

“Some worked a bit better than others. But overall, yeah, not fast enough at the moment.”

Verstappen may have been able to set laps fast enough to place in the top 10 in both sessions, but he pointed out one specific concern that let him know the pace still wasn’t there.

He was asked what his confidence level is heading into the race.

“At the moment, not very high,” the reigning champion admitted.

“We definitely need a bit more work to just get a better through-corner balance to go faster. I think it’s the same in the long runs.

“I mean, I got overtaken by the McLaren, so that says enough, right? They pull away.

“But even then, you know, compared to other teams around us, it was a bit tough today.”

If there’s any driver who can overcome a performance deficit in a car, it’s Verstappen — but he’ll be hard pressed to make moves on the narrow Imola track.

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