Red Bull’s Friday Confession
Another Friday, another Red Bull head-scratcher at Monza. Fourth in FP1, then a tumble to twelfth in FP2 for Liam Lawson, while Max Verstappen could only muster ninth in the same session, trailing both Racing Bulls and Haas. If you are Red Bull, that is not a good look on the fastest circuit on the calendar, and the team knows it. So instead of chasing lap time on Friday, they went looking for a workaround: the tow.
Lawson, deputising for the injured Isack Hadjar for a second race running, all but confirmed that Red Bull is plotting slipstream tactics for Saturday’s qualifying at the Italian Grand Prix. Whether that means Lawson tucking in behind Verstappen to tow him round Monza’s long straights is the obvious implication, even if nobody at Red Bull is saying it in so many words just yet.
A Productive Friday, Allegedly
Lawson’s own weekend has been a mixed bag so far, and he knows it. Promising pace early, then a slide down the order once the long runs started. But he insists there was method to the apparent muddle.
“Yeah, I mean, it was okay. It’s been, I would say, a productive day. We spent most of FP2 just long running, so we did a short run at the start, and it felt okay. And then we just did two long runs on the soft and the hard. So, for me, it’s good learning. I think we struggled more, I struggled more, in Zandvoort in the race versus qualifying. So, I’ll try and learn what I can from it.” – Liam Lawson, quoted by RacingNews365
That is a fairly polite way of saying Red Bull deliberately sacrificed a qualifying-style FP2 to chase race data, because their driver had a shocker in the race at Zandvoort despite reasonable single-lap pace there. Priorities, then: Red Bull would rather find out why the car falls apart over a stint than look good on a Friday timesheet nobody remembers by Sunday night.
Why the Tow Matters More Than Usual
Monza has always rewarded a good slipstream, but this year it seems to matter even more. With the top runners separated by fractions and every straight a genuine opportunity to gain lap time simply by sitting in someone’s wake, teams up and down the grid are treating Saturday’s qualifying less as an individual pursuit and more as a co-ordinated operation. Asked directly whether Red Bull would be organising tow tactics with Verstappen, Lawson did not dodge the question.
“I mean, for sure, it’s something we’ll discuss, and we’ll come up with a plan.” – Liam Lawson
Read that however you like, but it is hard to interpret as anything other than Red Bull preparing to use one car to benefit the other. Given Lawson is filling in rather than fighting for his own championship future in the strictest sense, and given Verstappen sits sixth in the standings still hunting whatever ground he can find, the maths of who benefits from a tow arrangement is not exactly a mystery.
Friday’s Pecking Order Was Not Flattering
Red Bull will not enjoy having this pointed out, but Friday’s practice sessions did nothing to suggest the RB22 has found the pace to trouble Mercedes, Ferrari or McLaren at a circuit that traditionally punishes any shortfall in power and low drag. Lewis Hamilton has been vocal about concerns over straight-line speed against Mercedes this weekend, as covered in our report on Hamilton’s worries over Ferrari’s Monza upgrade, so if the sport’s second-best team is nervous about top speed, Red Bull’s own struggles look even starker by comparison.
Verstappen’s Friday form has already prompted its own headlines, and understandably so given Red Bull’s balance concerns from FP1 onwards have carried straight through to FP2. A ninth-place finish behind a Racing Bulls car and a Haas is not the kind of form line that inspires confidence heading into a qualifying session where every tenth counts double at a track this quick.
Full FP2 Session in Context
| Pos | Driver | Team | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | George Russell | Mercedes | Session topper, per FP2 report |
| 2 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | |
| 9 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull Racing | Behind both RB and Haas |
| 12 | Liam Lawson | Red Bull Racing | Focused on long runs |
The gaps in that table reflect what the sources actually confirm about Friday’s order; Red Bull’s own two cars are the only reference points worth dwelling on, and neither is flattering.
What a Tow Plan Actually Buys Red Bull
None of this tow talk changes the underlying issue: Red Bull’s car still lacks the raw pace of the frontrunners, and no amount of slipstream choreography fixes an aerodynamic shortfall. What it can do is claw back a handful of positions in Q3 that the car itself would not otherwise deliver, and at a track where grid position feeds so directly into race result given how hard overtaking still is even with a tow, that matters more than it might elsewhere on the calendar.
It also says something about where Red Bull finds itself in 2026. This is a team currently fourth in the constructors’ standings, well behind Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren, and looking for every scrap of advantage it can find rather than simply outrunning the opposition on merit. Organising driver tactics around the tow is a sensible, pragmatic response to a car that is not quick enough on its own. It is also, whichever way Red Bull wants to spin it, an admission that raw pace is not currently there to be found.
Saturday’s qualifying will show whether the plan, whatever it ends up being, actually moves the needle. If it does not, Red Bull’s Friday will have been an accurate preview of a weekend the team would rather forget.
