RB F1 Eyes 'Perfect Weekend' Amid Challenges at Monza

RB F1 confronts Monza’s test, aiming for perfection as scoring becomes tougher in F1.

At its home Grand Prix in Monza, the RB F1 team is trialling new developments on the VCARB 01, exclusively on Yuki Tsunoda’s vehicle. Whether these have proved satisfactory so far remains to be seen, according to CEO Peter Bayer.

“It’s intriguing to observe that these enhancements generally work from an aerodynamic standpoint, but they often impact the balance, which is why we are trying some new elements on Yuki’s car: the floor, a bit on the halo, and also the mirrors. Ultimately, it is very early days and our engineers are analysing the data at the moment. In the midfield, if we do not deliver a perfect weekend, the other guys will obviously be right there with us. And Williams has been doing a very good job these past two weeks. Alpine is there, so the fight will be tight right to the end.”

The Faenza team must indeed bounce back after a challenging weekend at Zandvoort, although Bayer is keen to put his team’s performance in the Netherlands into perspective.

“It probably wasn’t our best weekend. At the same time, Yuki was just nine hundredths off Q3. Daniel delivered a very good race on Sunday in terms of pace. And you know, it’s not just about one element. We didn’t have much data because it rained a lot, then we had Logan Sargeant’s accident in FP3, and so, perhaps as a smaller team, we didn’t have as many tools available as the top teams. Thus, we approached a weekend like Zandvoort somewhat blindly, and that’s what made things very difficult for us.”

Among other changes in Italy, Tsunoda is now partnered with a new race engineer, Ernesto Desiderio. And Peter Bayer confirms that all is going well so far.

“They have known each other for a long time. Ernesto has been with us for over a year. This is part of the overall plan set by Laurent Mekies to develop the team on both a sporting and technical level. I think I can present this as doubly good news because we are developing talent internally. Ernesto takes over as race engineer for Yuki and Mattia Spini is being promoted internally. You know, other people have joined us recently. Tim Goss will start in October, so we are making good progress on the team side.”