Max Verstappen’s first competitive Friday in the new Ford-backed RB22 ended with Red Bull facing an overnight rebuild.
After a trip through the gravel at Alberta Park’s Turn 10 in FP2, damage was done to the car’s floor, T-tray and bodywork.
The four-time champion had shown competitive pace earlier in the day, finishing FP1 in P3 as Red Bull’s own power unit made its race-weekend debut with no obvious problems. But the excursion in FP2 left Verstappen P6 overall, 0.637s off pace-setter Oscar Piastri’s McLaren, and cost the team some clean running during the session’s qualifying simulations and long runs.
Sky Sports F1 pitlane reporter Ted Kravitz said telemetry showed Verstappen had “made a mess of the floor,” with grass collected on the front wing and damage extending across the underbody.
What Red Bull said
Chief Engineer Paul Monaghan confirmed that the team’s mechanics would have a busy night but played down the severity of the problem.
“I’ll say there’s enough to keep us busy. It’s recoverable. It’s nothing that drastic. It’s a bit of a thump, so we’ll tidy it up and go again,” Monaghan said.
Underbody damage is invariably costly for modern-day F1 cars because it disrupts the airflow that generates most of the downforce, affecting both single-lap balance and long-run consistency.
The lost running compounds the problem: Verstappen’s FP2 data is now less representative and leaves Red Bull with gaps in their understanding of tyre behaviour and setup heading into Saturday’s qualifying.
Monaghan said the team’s priority was clear. “Our main objective tomorrow is to sort out how we get laps out of this car, whether it’s qualifying or the race situation, and how we learn how to repeatedly do that and get it right,” he said.
Wider competitive picture
Red Bull had run cleanly under the new regulations to that point. Both cars completed their opening laps from the first minutes of FP1, and Monaghan described the debut of the Ford-partnered power unit as “fantastic.” Rookie teammate Isack Hadjar finished FP1 in P4, within three-tenths of Verstappen, and Monaghan praised him as “forthright” in his setup feedback.
The early competitive order suggests Red Bull faces a fight on two fronts. Piastri’s 1:19.729 broke the existing lap record. At the same time, Mercedes showed long-run pace that could prove decisive on Sunday, with George Russell’s average race-simulation time reportedly four-tenths quicker than Lando Norris. Kimi Antonelli finished FP2 in P2 for Mercedes, 0.214s behind Piastri.
Red Bull now heads into Saturday with two main aims: restoring the RB22’s underbody and recovering the prep time Verstappen lost after his excursion into the gravel.
