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Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB16B
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Special feature

The "subtle" Red Bull upgrades that kept it in the Portugal F1 mix

Red Bull's Portuguese Grand Prix fortunes were decidedly second best to Mercedes', but the result skews the potential that the team had at Portimao. With a new set of updates, the team looks good going forward into the rest of 2021's spicy F1 competition

The final Portuguese Grand Prix race result, on paper, doesn’t entirely reflect kindly on Red Bull. Max Verstappen’s late stop to gun for the fastest lap, which proved futile after once again failing to dance with the track limits devil, left him some way behind winner Lewis Hamilton.

In that, it was a weekend of near-misses at Red Bull. Verstappen could have got pole, had he not exceeded track limits on his quickest qualifying time. He could have taken fastest lap, had he not overcooked it on the exit of Turn 14. Feeling that losing the time to track limits was “odd, as they weren’t monitoring [Turn] 14” - despite an FIA directive adding it to the corners under scrutiny – Verstappen also didn’t seem to be abundantly happy with finishing second.

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