The free trials of Japanese Grand Prix have once again highlighted the crisis that is going through at the beginning of the season Red Bullboth with the four-time world champion Max Verstappen and with Isack Hadjarin his first year as a driver for the Milton Keynes team. While the Dutchman did not go beyond the 7th place obtained in FP1, the French-Algerian achieved his ‘best’ personal performance in the same session with the 13th halfand then remain still in 15th position in FP2.
A weekend therefore started on an uphill climb for the former Racing Bulls driver, who commented on his first activity on the track during the Japanese weekend as follows: “Today wasn’t our best day, we have struggled with balance and grip in both sessions and this made it difficult to put together the laps we would have liked. In FP2 we made a step forward in feeling with the car, but we were a little behind in lap times. I don’t feel as comfortable in the car as I would likebut I’m sure that before tomorrow we will be able to change things and put ourselves in a better position for qualifying.”
He also highlighted hopes of being able to make progress in an interview with the official F1 website Paul Monaghan, Red Bull Technical Director: “You can see from our pace that the cars are not performing to the standards that we have set for ourselves, as well as the standard that Max has set for himself. We have identified some things that are wrong, which is good because we have the ability to correct them. The problem now is how to correct them. There are some problems relating to certain subtleties. Will we be able to fix them quickly? I don’t know, but you will notice. The car now is what it is. Now we need to identify what It’s not working, understanding, repairing and being faster is a small challenge for us.”
