Max Verstappen admits ‘big problems’ after Red Bull struggles in Suzuka practice
Max Verstappen: Big problems at the moment
Max Verstappen admits Red Bull has “big problems” after slumping to P10 in Japanese GP practice.
The four-time world champion was 1.376s down on the P1 time set by McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.
Max Verstappen admits Red Bull problems after Suzuka practice struggles
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Yet to reach the podium in F1’s new battery-powered era this season, Verstappen lagged behind Red Bull’s rivals in Friday’s practices at the Suzuka circuit.
The Dutch driver was off the pace in both practice sessions, eight-tenths down in FP1 and almost 1.4s slower in the day’s second session.
Aside from his own lock-ups and slides during the sessions, Verstappen was also drawn into two stewards’ investigations with Lewis Hamilton getting in his way in FP1 while Franco Colapinto was given a warning for his erratic driving in FP2.
It was, simply put, “not very good” for Red Bull and Verstappen.
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“Not very good, to be honest,” he said. “Just lacking balance, grip, two opposites from FP1 to FP2 and yeah, both of them, not very good.
“So from our side a lot of work to be done to also understand why we’re having these kind of like big problems at the moment. But yeah, not a good day. ”
The four-time world champion revealed that when Red Bull made changes to his car between sessions, it brought other problems to light.
“You just try to correct one thing and then you get another one. But never, never finding a good, good balance, basically.
“It’s very difficult to solve at the moment, so I don’t expect miracles overnight.
“We just need to understand probably our issues a bit more, you know, where they are coming from.
Verstappen’s comments about his RB22 come just a day after he told the media in Japan that he does not believe he’ll be able to challenge for either pole position or a podium.
“We have to be realistic that we are nowhere near that kind of level at the moment, so I just go into the weekend and see where we will be.”
He is hoping Red Bull can take advantage of the April break to improve the RB22.
“I hope that we can use that break to understand our car a little bit better. Learn from the previous races and just try to be closer to the front.
“I think that’s the target for us. China was not a nice weekend for us, so I hope for a while that’s our worst weekend. In that sense, the break will be good.”
Verstappen has scored just eight points this season, putting him 43 down on championship leader George Russell after two race weekends.
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