Why Verstappen's engine could cancel out gains from new floor at F1 Miami GP

Max Verstappen is the only Red Bull F1 driver who can count on updates this weekend in Miami. What does the team expect from the modified floor, and was the engine a disadvantage compared with Mercedes during sprint qualifying?

As revealed by Motorsport.com, Red Bull Racing is phasing in a small but significant update package in three steps. In Jeddah, it introduced a few new components and bodywork tweaks, in Miami there are modifications to the floor, and further updates are scheduled for Imola.

According to the FIA's technical document, Red Bull’s Miami package consists of modified floor fences and floor edges – in other words, the tunnel inlets and the contoured flanges along the outside of the floor. Both elements are logically tied to the overall floor design.

Why Red Bull believes this floor update poses "no risk"

Introducing a floor update during a sprint weekend with only one free practice session seems risky, but Red Bull sees it differently.

“We’re trying to address two things,” chief engineer Paul Monaghan told outlets including Motorsport.com behind the Red Bull pit box.

“That’s why we’ve brought it this weekend. The updates are relatively stable and involve little risk. It’s a sprint weekend and this is a good opportunity for us to introduce it.”

The two elements the team is targeting in this update are pure downforce and improved cornering balance. There are overlaps and compromises involved, since a recurring theme of this ground-effect era has been teams finding that cars with high downforce peaks often struggle to sustain those peaks all the way through corners, causing sharp migrations between understeer and oversteer.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin Racing

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

The words “little risk” may sound incongruous during a sprint weekend, but Monaghan clarified: “I’m purely referring to the stability of the airflow. In the FIA document, I also explained that the stability is not affected by this.

“We’re not worried that it will make the car aerodynamically unstable or anything like that. It will probably give us a bit more downforce, and we hope to benefit from that.”

Balance is understood to have been a persistent issue with the RB21, but Monaghan wouldn’t go as far as saying that it has been the team’s principal focus of development.

“[Balance] is one of the things,” he said. “If you think back to the complaints after Bahrain, we’ve been able to address some of those.

“Have we been able to fix everything? Probably not. Are we continuing to work on it? Yes. There’s no easy fix for these issues – it’s about gradually improving the car step by step.

“We know what went wrong, though finding solutions is never simple. Maybe these problems will never completely go away, but can we reduce their impact – even on lap time? Yes.

“A lot of people in Milton Keynes are working incredibly hard on this. Step by step, it will get better.”

Red Bull confirmed that only Max Verstappen has access to the updated floor this weekend. Yuki Tsunoda still has to make do with an older specification and is expected to receive the new version in Imola.

New Mercedes engine, used unit for Red Bull

After Friday’s on-track action, Helmut Marko told Motorsport.com that initial signs regarding the new floor are positive. According to him, the new design reduces understeer – although a degree of it remains, rendering slow and medium-speed corners a weak spot.

Monaghan laughed when asked whether that’s really where the issue lies: “Well, in general, it’s in corners!”

During the sprint qualifying in Miami, though, that didn’t quite turn out to be the case. A comparison of Antonelli’s pole lap and Verstappen’s fastest SQ3 lap shows that Red Bull also lost ground mainly on the long straight (from the Florida Turnpike to Turn 17). Part of that is due to Antonelli being able to get on the throttle slightly earlier and therefore having a slightly better exit, but the gap continued to grow after that – which comes down to pure speed, in which engine power is a major factor.

The explanation here is twofold. Mercedes has installed a new power unit for this weekend, while Red Bull has returned to an older one.

While engine development is frozen, meaning Mercedes' new unit is technically the same specification, a fresh one can still offer a slight advantage because outright performance declines with accumulated usage cycles. Red Bull, on the other hand, used a fresh power unit in Jeddah – a true power circuit – and has reverted to a used engine this weekend at Honda’s request, according to sources within the team.

That decision is nothing out of the ordinary: drivers must complete the season using engines from a so-called pool, and engine manufacturers decide which power unit (in terms of wear) is best suited for each track. Still, it could partly explain Friday’s performance, although what matters far more to Red Bull is that the three-step update plan brings consistent improvements.

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