Wache reflects on Friday in Madrid: 'Some positives but not quick enough yet'

Published on 11 September 2026 by Niels Hendrix

Pierre Waché, technical director Oracle Red Bull Racing, said after Friday’s free practices in Madrid: “It was quite a smooth session, a normal Friday where you know you need to improve the car. In FP2 we were a little bit better than FP1. We did a lot of changes between sessions, and I think we will continue to explore some more changes ahead of FP3 as there's a lot of work to do on car set-up.”

Waché added: “Mechanical grip and the ride are more challenging than what we thought, the tyre grained more than expected, and the track is more bumpy than what we thought from the sim, so there are some challenges. There’s a lot of different types of corners here so it’s interesting from an engineering point of view, but it looks like it’ll be difficult to overtake. The long run was quite competitive, and our tyre management was quite good, so there’s some positives, but we know we’re not quick enough yet, so we have a lot of work to do.”