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Max Verstappen and his Red Bull Formula 1 team have had a habit of bouncing back from difficult Fridays in the past.
Whenever all seemed to be lost on track, time and again some strong overnight work back at its factory and simulator would help cure the balance issues that became a particular problem with last year’s RB20.
So what happened on Friday in Melbourne, as Verstappen ended up fifth and seventh in the first two practice sessions, is not something that historically would have triggered much concern.
But there are hints of Red Bull facing a different situation right now, and it is one that almost certainly does not have an overnight fix.
It appears that Red Bull has cured one of its main problems, in giving the car a better balance and wider operating window, but now it faces a wider issue of just not being quick enough.
As Verstappen reflected after Friday running at Albert Park: “To be honest, the balance wasn't even completely out. There were no massive or major problems.
“But somehow, the grip was not coming alive. We were just struggling on all four tyres really, in sector one, in the last sector. And that means, of course, that we are not really up there at the moment.”
You'd imagine it's done little to improve Verstappen's pessimistic pre-weekend prediction that Red Bull won't be challenging for victory in Melbourne.
One of the key targets for the RB21 was to eradicate the Achilles' Heel of its predecessor, in that last year's car lost a tonne of time when it fell out of the right set-up window.
Early indications from Bahrain testing, and even in Melbourne, are that progress has indeed been made in this area.
Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko confirmed this in an interview with Auto Motor Und Sport earlier this week: “The new car is more predictable and reacts to set-up changes as expected.
"It’s not like last year, where there was an immediate one-second drop if you fell outside the working window. But it still has weaknesses that we need to work on over the course of the season.”
However, the less peaky car certainly does not appear to have made the performance strides that rivals like McLaren and Ferrari have made.
And, while overnight set-up work in the sim can offer a quick fix for a better balance and turnaround things quite quickly, finding out-and-out performance is a much longer term project.
As Verstappen said about the potential to make a jump in Australia and recover on Saturday: “The problem is that it's not really like I have major balance problems, so I think it will be a bit hard to fix.
“But there's also nothing that I didn't expect when I arrived here. So I'm not positively or negatively surprised with the pace that we are showing.”
He added: “We just have to make sure that we find a bit more pace. But at the moment, we are definitely lacking a bit to fight up front.”
Lawson 'too slow'
Red Bull’s difficulties are further compounded by new signing Liam Lawson admitting that he had not performed as well as hoped on the opening day of action.
The New Zealander always knew he would be starting on the backfoot in Melbourne, as the only driver on the grid never to have raced there before, but even so he says things were not as he wanted.
After ending up 16th and 17th in the two sessions, Lawson said: “I’m comfortable, just too slow. So we obviously have a lot of work to do overnight.
"Day one on a new track, we're expecting to have some work to do. But probably not this much. We'll work on it overnight and try to improve on it for tomorrow.”
