I don't know if you have noticed that in the sprint qualifying sessions of the Austrian Grand Prix on Friday in SQ1 and SQ2, Verstappen usually had 0.3 to 0.4 seconds faster on the fastest lap than Norris on medium tyres, while with SQ3 on soft tyres, his lead was suddenly compressed to less than 0.1 seconds.
What is the reason for the change in Red Bull Racing's lead with different tyre formulations? On the Red Bull Ring, which has a larger proportion of straights, the impact of body resistance on lap times is obviously more sensitive than Barcelona's, and compared with the rear wings of Red Bull and McLaren in this station, the rear wing flaps of Red Bull are wider and have a larger angle of attack than McLaren.
This means that the Red Bull will have more resistance than the McLaren without turning on the DRS, but the RB20 can also gain more downforce in the corners. As you can see from the GPS graph of the fastest lap of the two, Verstappen was faster in the first and third stages, but Norris had the advantage in the second timed section, especially in the exit of Turn 3 and the approach of Turn 7.
The same can be drawn from the performance of the two on the big straight, on the straight, Norris tends to be faster in the early part of the straight, and after turning on the DRS, that is, at the end of the straight, it is obviously Verstappen who is faster, which fully reflects the advantage of Red Bull Racing in terms of DRS efficiency.
Norris was able to go faster in Cycle 2 because the full throttle section between Turns 3 and 4 was short enough, and at Turn 6, Norris could reach speeds of 205 km/h, compared to Verstappen's 198 km.
However, where Verstappen really built his advantage on the lap was his exit at Turn 7, and according to the previous logic, Norris should have been faster here, but the reality was that Verstappen was 3km/h faster than Norris.
Turn 7 also became the winner of the pole position battle in the sprint qualifying.
There was no doubt that the Red Bull Racing showed more aerodynamic efficiency on their home turf, especially DRS efficiency, and due to the nature of the track, the team also found a better tuning dessert on Friday than in previous races, which, combined with Verstappen's 'stroke of genius' at Turn 7, ultimately allowed him to win by 0.093 seconds over Norris.
The key reason McLaren was able to close the lap gap to Verstappen in SQ3 was that the softer tyres gave them more mechanical grip in the slow and mid-range corners with the same downforce, while the medium tyres were significantly worse in the slow and mid-range corners in the first two sprint qualifying sessions.
In summary, the more aerodynamic cars on a track with a larger proportion of straights or DRS zones often gain an advantage here, which shows that Red Bull still has a slight edge over McLaren when it comes to aerodynamic efficiency.