Lambiase after Friday practices Baku: 'Optimise our platform'

Published on 19 September 2025 by Niels Hendrix

Reflecting on the Friday free practices in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, Gianpiero Lambiase, head of racing of Oracle Red Bull Racing, said: “Baku presents another unique challenge and it is almost a lap of two halves, where we have a two kilometre long straight and a sequence of multiple low speed corners. It is challenging to pick our downforce level, to not only be optimum in lap time in qualifying but to ensure we are raceable across multiple factors on Sunday.”

Lambiase added: “That’s one challenge and the other is that this is a street track, so it is very bumpy, which causes a few gremlins under braking. So, there have been some tweaks mechanically across both cars, both in session and across sessions, to try and optimise our platform. Looking ahead to qualifying and the race, there is an unusual tyre selection across the grid, across both sessions and most people are opting to focus on the soft tyre. We, therefore, have some analyse to do this evening to really look into the programme for qualifying, while making sure we are on top of our long run game on Sunday, which could be impacted by lower than usual track temperatures here.”

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