Christian Horner confirms DRS issue ruined Max Verstappen’s final qualifying lap
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Christian Horner and Red Bull's RB18
Christian Horner confirms the issue faced by Max Verstappen’s RB18 which made him lose pole position.
Today’s qualifying session had everyone on the edge of their seats after an exceptional performance from many teams like Haas and Mercedes.
George Russell and Lewis Hamilton were able to rule the top of the grid for a couple of minutes at the start of Q3 until Carlos Sainz came out to set a fastest lap in his F1-75 Ferrari.
Sainz’s lap was followed by an amazing lap from Max Verstappen, which gave him the provisional pole. That lap, however, proved out to be his only flying lap in the session. Charles Leclerc had spun his Ferrari around the final corners of the track which had him restart his lap, and upon the restart, he had some blistering sector timings which made him catch Max Verstappen and move the Dutchman down to P2.
Watch: F1 Spanish GP 2022 – Post Qualifying – Max Verstappen
Max Verstappen, however, was on his flying lap by that time, and halfway through the lap, he complained of having some power issues, following which, he could not set another lap time, and failed to qualify for pole and finished right behind the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc in 2nd.
In his post race interview, he was asked that if he did not have the power issues, would he have been able to set a faster lap than Charles Leclec, to which the Dutchman said that he isn’t sure if it was a power issue or a rear wing issue.
“It’s always difficult to tell,” he said.
“On my final run either the DRS didn’t open or I just lost power.“So it’s a bit of a shame. But overall, to be on the front row here, looking at the whole weekend so far, I think was a good achievement. But of course I would’ve liked to go for the final run,” RaceFans quoted him.
Christian Horner confirms the issue with Max’s RB18
The team principal of Red Bull, Christian Horner confirmed with SkySports that the issue in Max Verstappen’s RB18 was with the DRS and not with the power, it failed to open for him in the final lap.
“It wasn’t power in the end it was the DRS that didn’t open,” he told Sky.
“Obviously we need to get the car back to understand what’s caused that because it opened on the back straight just as a check as he came back into the pits.“
“But I don’t think we had enough today to beat that lap of Charles. A great lap by him under pressure at the end. I’m still pleased with a front row start.”
Despite the incident, Red Bull are still hopeful for Max Verstappen’s performance in the race as he has a front row start and managed to win races from this position earlier this year.
Also read: “Fuc**ng bottled pole,” Red Bull fans enraged over Max Verstappen’s costly power issue
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Gunaditya Tripathi
(274 Articles Published)