“We are too slow, and not just a little bit,” Max Verstappen gives an honest opinion on Red Bull’s performance in the practice sessions
Follow Us
Max Verstappen
Max Verstappen enters the Monaco GP, aiming to cut the deficit on Lewis Hamilton, who leads the championship by 14 points. The Briton has 94 points from his four races this season, whereas, Max Verstappen has 80 points so far. Both drivers have had the best start to their F1 season so far.
However, Max Verstappen did not have much of an impact in the second practice session in Monaco on Thursday. The Dutch driver finished fourth in FP2, whereas, Lewis Hamilton finished third. Two Ferrari drivers, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz finished P1 and P2 respectively. Verstappen gave an honest opinion on his performance on Thursday, and believed that Red Bull were way off the mark.
“We are too slow, and not just a little bit, I think quite a bit. So we need to really find some pace because everyone has traffic. You have to look a bit more to optimum lap times, so optimum sectors, and we are quite off,” said Verstappen.
“It also didn’t feel great to drive. Normally I’m quite comfortable in the car, I can quite easily get to a pace, but it all takes too long and it’s not how I like it. So far, [it is] the most difficult weekend,” he added.
I’m just surprised how competitive Ferrari is: Max Verstappen
Max Verstappen stated that he was surprised by Ferrari’s speed on Thursday, and believes that their performance just shows how poor Red Bull had been. The Dutch driver said that the Italian giants have a huge gap, and they will have to work on their speed this weekend.
“I’m just surprised how competitive Ferrari is, but I think it just shows that we are pretty weak,” Verstappen said. “They’re doing very well, and we are very weak, so then the offset is very big. We luckily of course have a free day tomorrow, so can look into things. But a lot of things need to change I think,” he added.
Sergio Perez finished P1 in the first practice session, and felt more comfortable in his car as compared to his Red Bull teammate.
“The car was feeling good,” Perez said. “We did a couple of changes that we probably took a step back. So I think we got plenty of information for qualifying from Saturday, but then we need to find some pace at low fuel. I had a pretty bad run on the softs I had a lot of traffic. I couldn’t put my final sector together, because basically my best sector was from the medium tyre,” said Perez.
Also Read: “Lewis Hamilton beat me,” Sebastian Vettel refuses to give advice to Max Verstappen
Stay Updated!
Nirmit Mehta
(2425 Articles Published)