“We could attack the corners better,” Max Verstappen urges Pirelli to remedy the handling issues in 2023
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Max Verstappen
Max Verstappen and Red Bull, barring the first three races, have been flawless throughout the season. It started with two DNFs in the first three races but the Milton Keynes outfit quickly got on top of their reliability issues to get their journey back on track. Red Bull went on to win 6 on the trot with Max Verstappen coming up trumps in 5 of those 6 races.
The duo of Max Verstappen and Red Bull have looked robotically dominant at times, which is proving to be a scary proposition for the likes of Charles Leclerc and Ferrari. But, we also need to understand the fact that it’s impossible for any team to be perfect and therefore, it’s imperative for Ferrari to find the Achilles heel. One area which hasn’t looked as strong as the others for Red Bull is definitely tire management and we saw a glimpse of that in Austria.
Austria was one of the few races where Red Bull definitely looked the second best when it came to raw pace. As a result of which, Max Verstappen was overtaken by Charles Leclerc thrice during the course over the race. This happened because the RB-18 was overweight, which degraded the tires much more in the scorching heat at the Red Bull ring. There have also been other instances when Max has complained of lack of grip.
Max Verstappen opens up about the problems faced due to the Pirelli tires
Talking to Formel 1, the reigning world champion talked about the issues faced by him in terms of the tires this season. He stated, “Of course you have to bring a tire and you don’t even know how much downforce we will have. And with the greater weight, it’s difficult for Pirelli to know what to expect or what what they get.”
“That probably comes from the weight of the car and the structure of the tires and is not ideal. But that’s why we have to work around this problem as teams and try to make the car steer a little better.”
Speaking about the changes he said, “Of course we could attack the corners better with a stronger front tire, but on the other hand the weight limits how much you can gain in the slow corners.”
We have seen that the issues around tire management have come to the fore this season. This is down to the fact that this year the cars are bulkier, which puts more pressure on the tire on the faster corners. Therefore, it’s imperative for Pirelli to find a solution to remedy the situation.
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Shubham Bajpai
(776 Articles Published)