Max still in Austria: 'We have ideas and direction to work on for this weekend'
Published on 08 July 2020 by Niels Hendrix
“I feel good but of course the result of last weekend was not what we wanted, which was to score a good amount of points and fight for the win”, says Max Verstappen, looking back at the Austrian Grand, where he unfortunately failed to finish due to a technical issue with his RB16. “I was looking good for a podium which I thought was easily possible because it was basically between Mercedes and myself on raw pace. But then you also look at how the whole race panned out, we could have scored a good amount of points against Lewis but it is what it is, we can’t change it and now I’m looking forward to hopefully having a more positive weekend.”
Max continues: “We were a bit down on pace compared to Mercedes in qualifying so we definitely need to close that gap to fight them in that area rather than on strategy. Our pace is usually a bit better in the race than in quali but there is still quite a bit of work to do which the engineers are flat out on. We have ideas and the direction to work on for this weekend so that’s positive.”
What are you doing to keep busy between races at the Red Bull Ring? Max: “The environment is really beautiful here so that’s nice and I’ve been on a few runs with my trainer in the local area. I relaxed a little on Monday and then met up with the engineers and we talked through some ideas for the weekend. We also had a team BBQ last night which was a good way to have some fun in our team bubble as we cannot go anywhere outside of that. The days go by quite quickly.”
What’s different heading into this weekend compared with last weekend? Max: “I’m looking forward to racing on the same track again this weekend and it’s a good opportunity to get a better understanding of the car. Whatever we found wasn’t perfect last weekend we can improve this week. On the same track I always think it’s quite nice to do a direct comparison, depending on the weather, and hopefully we can do better this time.”
“It looks like it could rain this week and I’m not sure anybody knows how competitive they are in the wet with these new cars so that could be interesting. I always enjoy driving in the wet, I don’t mind it, but to be quick you need both the car and driver to be 100%”, concludes Max.
