Max Verstappen: “Don’t get stronger from dropping out, but with a winning car”
Published on 28 August 2017 by Mike Motilall
Six DNF’s in twelve races. It is not something that Max Verstappen had hoped for this season. At the Belgian Grand Prix, an engine failure put once again a spoke in his wheels on lap seven. This meant once again a premature end of what looked like a promising race. On Monday evening in Ziggo Sport's Peptalk, Max looked back at the weekend.
“It was very disappointing”, says Max. “Also for your own fans, for whom you want to score a good result. When you’re out after only just eight laps, that’s very annoying. We tried to resolve the problem still, but we couldn’t, and that gets to me. Especially after qualifying, this was my best of this season. Everything was just right.”
It’s not the first time that the Red Bull Racing-driver drops out in a very good position: “That’s very frustrating. There goes another good result and actually that’s the case the whole year. The fun is rapidly disappearing as well. You take a holiday to recharge your batteries for the rest of the season. You come all motivated to Spa, everything goes well and you have a super qualifying. And then… you drop out on lap eight..”
The problem with the Renault power unit, now TAG Heuer, appeared to be something software related. Max explains: “Because we blew up some engines at the beginning of the year, a safety precaution was installed to prevent that from happening.” The moment that Verstappen lost power, it was requested to remove it. “You can turn off the sensor, but that didn’t work either”, says the Dutchman.
The engine itself was not damaged. The team even got it going once the RB13 had been returned: “They took out a spark plug and put it back in. When they started the engine, it was running. I would have rather blown up the engine than grinding to a halt and see that it’s still working afterwards.”
Verstappen is asked what is going around in his head right now: “I don’t think you can call it bad luck anymore. And then I am even leaving out qualifying and the free practices. It’s also partially how everything has been prepared. Behind the scenes, we once had an instance where an engine arrived at the circuit and something was not ok. That shouldn’t happen at an organization like this.” Max however has no influence on this: “At a certain point you start thinking, I cannot do anything about it, so just let it go. I just cannot have any influence on it. If I could, I would very gladly have done it.”
The contract with Red Bull Racing, despite all misfortune this season, is not immediatly under any pressure: “I clearly let them know that I am not happy with it, just like with the other DNF’s. I can understand that Red Bull Racing is not the cause of this all, but in the end it is the complete package your depending on. Next year also.”
Coming weekend the Italian Grand Prix is on the menu. Top speed is of great importance on the circuit in Monza. Max doesn’t expect to have a walk in the parc: “It will be a difficult weekend. And there are also some penalties pending. We are not allowed to use more than four engines this season, and we have already used them all. In Italy we will be using our fifth and hope to finish the rest of the season with that one.”
