Follow-up treatment by a doctor: Japan / Editorial

As expected, Japan deserved the trip. After the cancellation in Melbourne, Max was very encouraged, but not very happy with the setup during all the training sessions. The qualifying lap wasn’t great either, but it was just good enough for pole position. It wasn’t until the race that we were fully there again. On the one hand, this was due to the changes made in qualifying and, on the other hand, due to the high temperatures that traditionally suit the Red Bull Race.

The reason why we were not the same with the setup was probably the major technology update that we brought to Japan. Because the second session was more or less canceled on Friday – too wet for slicks, too dry for intermediates – something like this could happen. In fact, the weather forecast for Friday was good, but rain for Saturday. In fact it was quite the opposite.

For Max, the repair of the front wing turned out to be necessary, also caused by the high temperature of Sunday. Max wanted more wings, his race engineer GP Lambiase less. Because the race was canceled, we were in a fortunate position to be able to fix that. Indirectly you can say that Ricciardo helped Verstappen because from the restart everything was fine for Max By the way, the reason for the bad start of the Bulls was the hard tires. Ricciardo was very cautious in the first corner and was overtaken on the left and right. Then there was this racing crash, which could easily have happened at the start.

In the second start, Yuki did very well. His extreme cunning was the show of the day. The fans were absolutely over the moon. His weekend was at the level of Max, Alonso and Co. Flawless, great performance under the pressure of his home race.

Checo was also very strong. He was unlucky on the field, but brought himself back into the game with a brilliant maneuver against Hamilton at the R160 corner. He is definitely having his best season with us so far.

In my opinion, the fact that the transfer rumor mill is already cooking like this at the beginning of April is due to several factors. First: Hamilton announced his move to Ferrari very early. And if Radio Paddock is to be believed, Audi wants a decision from Carlos Sainz soon. Aston Martin is also putting pressure on several fronts. We do not participate in these games. We won’t hear from Red Bull Racing until mid-season about how things are going in terms of personnel.