Max Verstappen expressed frustration with his RB20 after difficult practice sessions at Imola, acknowledging Red Bull’s rivals have made significant progress.
Championship leader Max Verstappen admitted he had a “difficult” day of free practice at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix.
The Red Bull driver finished fifth in the opening practice session and seventh in the second session on the first day of running at the Imola circuit.
Verstappen complained about the balance of his Red Bull during both sessions, making small mistakes on several fast laps throughout the day. He said he was not satisfied with his car, both with and without heavy fuel loads.
“A difficult day. It’s just hard to get a good balance. I just didn’t feel really comfortable in the car; it was moving around a lot. It’s very easy to lose the car. So these are things we need to look into because today was just bad.”
“It’s not comfortable. Also, the long run was really bad, there’s definitely something we need to find if we want to be competitive tomorrow.”
Verstappen was frustrated by Lewis Hamilton when the Mercedes F1 driver slowed at the Villeneuve chicane during the second session.
While Verstappen expressed his frustration with his rival, Hamilton told his race engineer Peter Bonnington that he had not been warned about Verstappen’s approach.
“It’s just not the first time it’s happened like this with Lewis. Of course, you always try to stay calm about it, but it happened again. But I also don’t want to talk too much about it because it’s not our problem. Today, we were simply behind the others, and we need to address that.”
When asked if he thought Red Bull could improve its performance before tomorrow’s qualifying, Verstappen replied, “I guess it can’t be worse than what we had today, can it?”
“We’ll look into a few things we can do better for tomorrow, but it seems like others have made a small step forward. And on our side, it was just a bad day.”
Sergio Pérez also acknowledged that Red Bull had a performance deficit at the moment, but he isn’t worried yet: “I think we have work tonight to try and find a better pace. We need to improve both on the performance runs and on the long runs.”
“And if we have a better balance for qualifying, we will gain a few places for the race. It was tricky with the wind, but I expect changes before qualifying tomorrow, so it will be interesting.”
Verstappen Frustrated with RB20 After Imola Practice. Verstappen Frustrated with RB20 After Imola Practice
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