Max Verstappen doesn’t expect to fight for the victory on Sunday, but a wet race could shake things up.
Red Bull came out of the Bahrain tests with many questions and very few certainties, perhaps only Max Verstappen. The updates brought by the Anglo-Austrian team did not yield the expected results, to the point that the four-time world champion himself doesn’t expect to fight for the win in the season’s first race at the Melbourne circuit.
Verstappen, speaking at the press conference, addressed the topic with complete calm, explaining Red Bull’s current situation. These are his words: “We’re in a positive phase, I think… but I’m not certain about it! I believe we’ll know more this weekend. We’ll try to do our best, because in the end, that’s the only thing we can control. The tests were short, but we identified some areas we need to improve and will continue to work on them. There has been natural progress, but there are still several aspects we want to work on to do better.”
The Melbourne track is completely different from Bahrain, which is why Max Verstappen is confident in the developments of his car: “Melbourne is a very different track from Bahrain, so that alone will change the driving feel. We need to take it step by step. Right now, we’re not the fastest, but the season is very long. If you had asked me the same question a year ago, the situation at the end of the season would have looked completely different.
In Formula 1, things can change very quickly. We’ll give our best to be competitive. This is the last year of these technical regulations, so the focus is on this season, but inevitably, there will also be an eye on the future. The feeling with the car will improve, but each track presents different challenges: “We’ll work to make the car more drivable, but Bahrain is very different from here. It’s hard to say if we’ve solved all the problems, we’ll have to be patient and see how much we can recover.”
Finally, a focus on the season: “You’re making me think about things I don’t actually think about. Sometimes it’s better to just go for it, trust the team, and go from there. We always give our best on and off the track, trying to fix what’s not working on the car. The goal is to minimize mistakes and collect as many points as possible.”
Photo: X Oracle Red Bull
