Red Bull raised early Hungary alarm as major concern exposed

Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies has explained how the team raised the alarm about its Hungarian Grand Prix from the "first lap in practice."

The final race before F1's summer break proved to be a major letdown for Red Bull, with Max Verstappen qualifying only eighth and then finishing in ninth as Yuki Tsunoda posted another non-score from a pit-lane start.

Verstappen was not a factor in any of the crucial sessions and branded his RB21 as "undriveable" as he laboured to ninth, behind Liam Lawson and ahead of Kimi Antonelli. 

Post-race, Mekies explained that most of Red Bull's woes were due to a lack of tyre temperature, with the alarm being raised from the very start of the weekend.

"Well, the honest answer is that if we knew, we would have fixed it," Mekies told media, including RacingNews365, when asked why the team had struggled.

"What I can tell you is that it was there from the first lap in FP1, we looked at each other and said: 'What is going on?' 

"We could see in all the slow and medium speed corners that we were just very slow and it was something that was not balance related. 

"We could not put the car in the right window, we couldn't switch on the tyres, it happens sometimes, but not to that magnitude, and it felt wrong from the very beginning. 

"The good thing is that the guys went out with both cars to try different things, but it didn't make any difference; we couldn't switch on the tyres on long runs or short runs. 

"Sometimes, you get it by luck or merit in the right window, but it never happened, and it happened in qualifying. 

"It has been a theme this year to say the window is quite narrow, and sometimes very narrow, and [the weekend] was a lot more than that, and we were unable to get the car [in the window.]"