SUNDAY MORNING DEBRIEF: Ferrari nearly matched Red Bull in qualifying – so where did their race pace go?

We’ve become used to seeing a Red Bull with a bigger performance advantage on race day than in qualifying in the previous two seasons. This first race of 2024 suggested the same pattern. In a car in which he could easily have lost out on pole to Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen finished 25s clear of the best non-Red Bull.

Verstappen thinks that contrast between qualifying and race was made even starker by the changed conditions of Saturday. In Friday’s qualifying session the wind was gusting, making Turns 4 and 13 in particular very difficult. By Saturday the wind had died down and turned through 90-degrees.