Does Honda still have horsepower available or should Red Bull gain time elsewhere?

Mercedes is superior at the start of the 2020 season. The German race team scored a one-two in the first and second free practice session and with that they seem to be the team to beat, in both qualifying and the race.

Red Bull has a step to make

In the longruns Red Bull has to tolerate not only Mercedes in front of him, but also the Racing Point. In the race simulations the pink cars turned out to be a tenth faster than Red Bull. However, a comment should be made, as Max Verstappen couldn't use his set of tyres optimally. "Verstappen ruined a set of tyres by driving into the gravel, making the lap times on that particular set of tyres unrepresentative".

We also looked at where exactly the difference between Mercedes and Red Bull comes from. When cornering the difference is only minimal, even negligible. But how different is that on the straights? On each lap Verstappen and Alexander Albon lose an average of 0.48 seconds. No other team delivers that much in that area. AlphaTauri is only 0.16 seconds slower than Mercedes on each lap.

Good news or just news?

The fact that AlphaTauri is closer to Mercedes than Red Bull may indicate that Honda still has some ground to cover. The Japanese engine supplier may have more horsepower available for Verstappen and Alexander Albon for Saturday and Sunday. Another scenario is that Honda has already shown everything this weekend. In that case it is very likely that the RB16 will be tuned with more downforce, causing Red Bull to drop to top speed for that reason. The Austrian race team will then have to make sure they get their time gain in the corners at Spielberg.