"Nothing works": Red Bull's Helmut Marko gives damning verdict about the car after a disappointing Friday for the team

Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko gave a damning verdict after the team's lackluster performance in the FP2 session on Friday at the F1 2024 Singapore Grand Prix. The Austrian team made a decent start to the weekend as Max Verstappen finished a competitive P4. However, in the important FP2 running under the lights, the deficiencies of the RB20 were exposed as the three-time world champion could only manage a P15.

Verstappen's teammate Sergio Perez experienced similar struggles as the car could not ride the track's curbs and bumps effectively, finishing the first two practice sessions on Friday in P14 and P8 respectively.

Speaking with Motorsport Dutch, Marko explained the struggles of the RB20 around the Marina Bay Circuit and that "nothing works" on the car.

"Nothing works. Nothing works on Max's car at all. On both the soft and the hard tires he had no grip and balance at all. At the moment I would say that it is very worrying. We really have to try drastic things. Let's see what else we can do," he said.

Commenting on its sister team RB's eye-catching performance on Friday, the Red Bull advisor said:

"I don't know how that's possible. Especially not after Baku, since they didn't bring any new parts to this race. We'll have to see how it goes. Yuki [Tsunoda] was incredibly fast on the hard tires. I have no explanation, sorry."

Red Bull would need to make certain changes ahead of the all-important Saturday as qualifying around Singapore plays a rather important role in determining the results on Sunday.

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Max Verstappen gives his take on Red Bull's difficult Friday

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen said it was a "difficult" day for the team as he could not grip any set of tires at the track. As per F1.com, the three-time world champion said:

“Today was difficult. We didn’t have the grip that we would have liked on the tires, so I felt like we were sliding a lot more than usual. This caused us particular issues in FP2, which wasn’t really a positive session for us.

"We haven’t so much been struggling with the bumps and the kerbs, but it was more about the general grip of the tires. We are going to have to go back and analyze the data and see what we can do to optimize the performance with the car and the tires so we can improve ahead of qualifying."

It was expected that the Red Bull would struggle in Singapore as they did last year given the RB20's recent slump in performance. However, no one had anticipated that the reigning world champions would be closer to the midfield than the top group on Friday.