“No one gives full beans or goes to qualifying spec at testing,” Max Verstappen stays cautious of competition ahead of Bahrain GP

Max Verstappen and Red Bull have made a powerful comeback in Bahrain after the team’s mediocre performance in the first round of pre-season testing in Barcelona in the last week of February. Red Bull also revealed the new sidepod on its RB18 on the final day and made significant gains on the track.

However, the 24-year old is cautious of the competition and doesn’t want to get ahead of himself. The driver, reading much into the result, as quoted by GP Fans, said, “No one gives full beans or goes to qualifying spec at testing, so we can’t read too much into the timing screens,” hinting at teams like Ferrari and Mercedes, who try to show themselves as underperformers in the testing and then press for the championship from the first weekend onwards.

The reigning champion topped the timesheet on the final day of the testing in Bahrain and made a statement of intent to other teams and drivers. On the second day, Max Verstappen finished second behind Carlos Sainz, showing that the Dutch can’t be kept away from the podium.

Max Verstappen’s times are irrelevant: Red Bull

Max Verstappen had put some impressive laps on the second and the third day of the testing. He repeatedly improved his lap timings and eventually got himself on top of the board in the second session of the day. 

However, just like the driver’s statement of not reading much into the times, Red Bull’s Head of Race Engineering, Guillaume Rocquelin, said, “The lap times are irrelevant,” sharing the common belief with the driver. This can also be attributed to the fact that Red Bull says they were “not trying” to be the best and yet were on the second spot of the sheet.

He added, “Today was more about putting together the lessons we have learned over the past few days. It was about going through the process of running different compounds, so that the drivers are happy and that we have a platform to work from for next week.”

“There were some slight differences in the tyre allocation between Max and Checo, but generally the idea was the same, to establish a good baseline with which we can start the race weekend and I think we achieved that,” Rocquelinn concluded.

With the first race of the season coming up in a week, the teams are looking excited and improving their cars at a rapid pace, which is even hard for their drivers to catch up with. While Red Bull doesn’t want to sound cocky ahead of the race weekend, they sure look one of the strongest teams on the grid, hoping to replicate and build upon their 2021 season’s success.

ALSO READ: Red Bull Pre-Season Testing: What we learned from Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez’s RB18 run in Bahrain