Max Verstappen hopes Red Bull can get its kerb problems “under control”

Max Verstappen has been the benchmark in F1 for the past four years. The Dutchman has often been on a winning spree and has amassed 60 wins in his career so far. However, amidst the recent uprisings of McLaren and Ferrari, this advantage is palling day by day, making Verstappen wish that Red Bull’s kerb problems get under control soon.

Red Bull started the season with the high hopes of recreating their 2023 success. They looked set to beat their previous year’s records and aimed for a perfect season. However, the Austrian squad found a peculiar weakness within the RB20’s characteristics, causing Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez to have troubles around the circuits where kerbs were essential for lap time.

Inherently, Red Bull was made to run on a stiff suspension setup, but with the vastly different characteristics of some tracks like Monaco, this advantage soon tumbled down.

Of course, the problem with the kerbstones is something we haven't got under control, so that makes it very difficult. The same goes for the problems with the bumps. So there is really work to do in the hope that we can improve the car in that respect as well. We also really do hope that we can pick up a big margin if we can get that problem under control.

Max Verstappen said in an interview with RacingNews365

The Dutchman then explained that the engineers at Milton Keynes were unable to tame the RB20. This unfortunate set of circumstances troubled their hopes of winning races and made them fall into the clutches of Ferrari, McLaren and even Mercedes. Thus, he hopes for the situation to improve soon and get the RB20 to perform comfortably on the kerbs again.

Fernando Alonso claims Max Verstappen won’t go for an early retirement

While things have been quite intense the past few weeks, Verstappen recently shared that he is bored by the current format and is considering quitting F1 earlier than anticipated. On the other end of the grid, Fernando Alonso is the oldest driver and explains how the passion for racing would stop the 26-year-old from retiring anytime soon.

The Spaniard related to his early days in F1 and claimed that the thought about retiring changes quickly.

That’s what I was thinking when I was at Max’s age. I remember it was back in 2007, I signed a contract with McLaren for three years after being World Champion with Renault and I was 200 per cent sure that it was my last contract. I thought that it was my last season in 2018 and I said ‘bye bye’ to F1, thinking that it was enough for my career. I found, even when I decided to stop, I couldn’t.

Fernando Alonso said in an interview with The Times

The 42-year-old explained that when he was Verstappen’s age and the reigning champion, he thought he had signed his last contract. Subsequently, things changed rapidly, and he decided to leave in 2018. To everyone’s surprise, he was back in F1 in 2021 after a two-year sabbatical and found untapped performance in himself on his return.

Despite Alonso’s claims, Verstappen is known for his stance against adding races in F1. While, regardless of his complaints, the sport has been interested in adding races that drivers fear would lead to burnout, and could force the Dutchman out of F1.

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