Max Verstappen claims that the Red Bull car is “enjoyable to drive again” following Singapore drama
Max Verstappen claims that business is back to normal for him as his Red Bull is enjoyable to drive again.
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Max Verstappen (via Imago)
Max Verstappen and Red Bull have completely dominated Formula 1 this season. Having won every single race as a constructor before Singapore, many in the paddock thought that they would win throughout the year. However, Red Bull had its ounce of bad luck at the Marina bay circuit where the team just didn’t have the pace to fight with its rivals.
Max Verstappen struggled throughout and finished P5 and lost his winning streak. Many were already considering the upset in Singapore as a one off. This seems to be accurate, as Max topped both the practice sessions at Suzuka on Friday. The Dutchman was 0.320 seconds ahead of Charles Leclerc and almost half a second clear of McLaren’s Lando Norris.
In an interview, Max Verstappen describes his Friday outing at Suzuka. “It felt really good today. From lap one the car was enjoyable to drive again,” Verstappen said. “It seems like we had a strong day, on short runs, long runs… There’s a lot of degradation on this track, so it will be quite tough on tyres in the race. But so far we had a good start to the weekend,” he continued.
Sergio Perez’s weekend in Suzuka hasn’t been satisfactory so far
With Max Verstappen topping FP1 and FP2, it was a completely different story at the other side of the garage. The Mexican driver encountered balance problems in FP1. They were partially addressed in FP2 as Sergio Perez went on to finish ninth, being a whole second behind his teammate. Sergio claimed that things were looking a lot better than last weekend.
Red Bull can win the constructors championship this weekend if they are able to outscore Mercedes, which seems doable since they have regained their pace. Lewis Hamilton is the only active driver on the grid who has 5 wins at the Japanese GP. With qualifying happening in a few hours, it will be interesting to see the true pace of all the constructors.
In case you missed it:
- Max Verstappen goes back on statement about his F1 retirement plans after Lewis Hamilton signs new contract with Mercedes
- Aston Martin team boss defends Lance Stroll following poor performances at the Dutch GP, claims “reliability issues” always affecting the Canadian
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Varad Joshi
(940 Articles Published)