Red Bull confronts major balance issues after troubled Monza Friday

Red Bull’s Monza hopes hit an early setback

Red Bull’s Italian Grand Prix weekend began with a problem it had hoped Monza would expose less severely than Zandvoort: an unstable car balance. The team entered the weekend expecting the Temple of Speed to offer a better opportunity, but Friday practice delivered the opposite signal. Both Red Bulls finished behind Racing Bulls driver Arvid Lindblad and Haas driver Oliver Bearman.

Max Verstappen missed first practice as Ayumu Iwasa took over the RB22, then returned for FP2 to find a car generating a long list of frustrations. The four-time world champion reported difficulties with the brakes, a lack of rear downforce and heavy bouncing after set-up changes. The result was a car that remained difficult to place consistently through the high-speed sections.

Our Friday recap from Monza provides the wider picture of a disrupted opening day, but Red Bull’s own assessment was clear: the balance issue is the priority.

Wache identifies the central problem

Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache said the team was dealing with a fundamental issue rather than simply reacting to the small changes listed in the FIA document for the bib and front wing.

“I think that clearly we have a balance issue on the car, that is the main thing,” Wache told Motorsport.com when asked about Verstappen’s radio complaints. “It’s a little bit like Zandvoort, to be honest, and we try to understand what the issue is. We try to fix it in a different way by set-up and car components.”

Wache explained that Red Bull would evaluate components it has had available for several races before choosing which direction to pursue. However, Verstappen’s absence from FP1 has reduced the team’s time to respond, leaving it with only FP3 to make progress before the competitive sessions.

Energy management adds another layer

Red Bull also encountered a problem with energy management, an area Verstappen had already identified as a weakness at energy-limited circuits. Iwasa said the team found an issue on the lap before a planned push lap, describing it as valuable learning for the rest of the weekend.

Iwasa reported the same underlying balance limitation as Verstappen: the car felt acceptable at low speed but became difficult at high speed, producing what he called a “disconnected car balance”.

Wache was not treating energy management as the immediate concern. For Red Bull, the urgent task remained fixing the balance—both at Monza and back at the Milton Keynes factory.