Verstappen evaluates Red Bull’s prospects after modest friday
Red Bull Racing/Red Bull Content Pool
Max Verstappen shared his thoughts following the first two practice sessions for the Australian Grand Prix, stating that he was “not positively or negatively surprised” about Red Bull’s performance level after a subdued start to the weekend.
Heading into the season opener with caution, Verstappen had remarked that the team was “not the quickest at the moment.” His Friday performance at the Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit saw him finish in seventh position, over six-tenths of a second behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who set the pace.
Reflecting on his time with the RB21 and his minor off-track excursions, Verstappen commented, “To be honest, the balance wasn’t even completely out. No massive or major problems. But somehow, the grip was not coming alive. I was just struggling on all four tyres, really, in Sector 1 and the last sector. That means, of course, that we are not really up there at the moment.”
When questioned on his approach for improvement overnight, Verstappen added, “The problem is that it’s not really like I have major balance problems. I think it will be a bit hard to fix. It’s also nothing that I didn’t expect when I arrived here. I’m not positively or negatively surprised with the pace we are showing. We just have to make sure that we find a bit more pace, but at the moment we are definitely lacking a bit to fight up front.”
Meanwhile, Verstappen’s new teammate, Liam Lawson, ended the day in 17th position, 1.2 seconds behind Leclerc and more than half a second adrift of the reigning World Champion. The New Zealander had to familiarize himself with a new circuit in the sister Red Bull car.
“[I’m] comfortable [in the car] – just too slow,” Lawson summarized, after his brush with the wall at Turn 9 during FP1. “We obviously have a lot of work to do overnight. Day one, on a new track, we were expecting to have some work to do, but probably not this much. We’ll work on it overnight and then try and improve it for tomorrow.”
When asked if he had an initial assessment of why the day was tougher than expected, the former AlphaTauri and Red Bull super-sub replied, “Not really. I think if we knew that we’d know how to fix it as well. In general, just grip when we need to use it on that short run, but then in general our long run pace was slow as well. We’ll work on it.”
As the Red Bull squad approaches the remainder of the weekend, both drivers have their work cut out for them to improve their standing and close the gap to their rivals.
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