Red Bull contending with flapping wing DRS issue… again

Red Bull is scrambling to fix in time for FP2 another DRS issue that impacted Max Verstappen in Friday's opening practice in Baku.

Verstappen was plagued with a dysfunctional Drag Reduction System in Barcelona that Red Bull's engineers believed they had been addressed with a permanent fix.

But in FP1 in Baku, the Dutchman's rear wing plane was flapping in the wind on Baku's long and bumpy section, a problem that did not appear on the car of Sergio Perez who set the fastest time in the first practice session.

But the Mexican was also running a slightly different spec rear wing on his RB18.

• Read also: Red Bull fix to DRS issue ready for big Baku test

"Obviously we’ve seen it, we’ve got the data on it, we’ve got the comparison to Sergio’s wing so I think there’s some modifications that we need to do just to make sure we eradicate that for this afternoon," Red Bull team boss Christian Horner told Sky F1.

When it was suggested to Horner that Red Bull's DRS issue was perhaps rooted in the team's tireless efforts to reduce the weight of its car, Horner said:

"Weight is always a critical factor and you’re chasing that, obviously, all over the car," he said.

"There was a difference between the cars so we just need to look at the set-up of it and the rigidity of it and hopefully we can get on top of it for this afternoon."

Red Bull's rivals are allegedly keeping an eye on the team's DRS problem as they may suspect a deliberate attempt by the team to gain lap time. But Horner laughed off the suggestion.

"It’s detrimental to performance!" he said. "It’s not enhancing the performance, but the guys are into it and hopefully we’ll get it resolved for the next session."

"It always seems to be on Max’s car for some reason," he added. "So we need to get on top of it.

"I think we understood the issues from Barcelona and hopefully we can tune this out for the next session."

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