Red Bull expecting grid to go in ‘one particular direction’ at Azerbaijan Grand Prix

Red Bull are looking to ‘evolve’ as they look to Ferrari to improve the RB18

(Getty Images)

Red Bull chief engineer Paul Monaghan has said the team are “open-minded to change” as they look to evolve their RB18 car over the season and get the edge on championship rivals Ferrari.

Red Bull and Ferrari have been closely matched over the first seven races of the season but the momentum is with Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez heading into the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku this weekend.

Perez delivered Red Bull’s fourth consecutive victory when he beat Carlos Sainz to win the Monaco Grand Prix, with Verstappen taking the previous three races to build a points lead over Charles Leclerc in the driver standings.

The teams have still been close in some areas of performance, however, with Red Bull excelling in straight line speed and Ferrari having the advantage in slow corners.

Monaghan has said Red Bull have been looking at Ferrari as they aim to “evolve”, as they first look to prepare the RB18 for the street race in Baku, a race that he believes will pull the grid in “one direction”.

“We’re learning to evolve our programme and our lap time,” Monaghan said. “And it’s relative to those guys. We can look at what the Ferrari is good and bad at. And I think it would be naive of us not to.

“They tend to be quite strong [at] low speed. And then we tend to be better in other areas of the circuit. And there’s a big visual clue if you look occasionally as to how we’ve achieved our lap time and they have achieved theirs.

“Are they stuck in that pattern? I don’t know. Are we stuck in ours? No, not at all. We are open-minded to change. And if you stand still in this sport, you can often be left behind, so if we don’t look and learn and reconsider that would be a little bit presumptuous of us.

“At the moment, I’d say we’re quite happy with our trade as we strike it, and I think Baku will pull everybody in one particular direction. I think Silverstone, that could produce a bit of difference, shall we say? Spielberg will produce a bit of difference.

“On Hungary, I expect there’ll be a convergence again, but that’s track nature and how we best exploit our lap time, isn’t it?

“So at the moment, I’d say we’ve got our trade reasonably good. But come [the final race in] Abu Dhabi we might have got it right or wrong.”