"Red Bull will need to get a better understanding of the car," claims Verstappen after a disappointing weekend
Having retired from the Austrian Grand Prix after a collision with Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Max Verstappen urged the Milton Keynes-based outfit to get a better understanding of the RB21.
Although Max Verstappen wasn’t quite able to take the top spot across practice, he looked fairly competitive in the third and final practice on Saturday.
However, the Dutchman was unable to challenge for top places in qualifying, complaining about the overall balance of his RB21. In Q3, the reigning champion appeared to be in contention for P5 on the grid, but he was forced to abort his final flying lap due to yellow flags brought out for a spin by Pierre Gasly.
Although Verstappen had been expected to bounce back from his disappointing result in qualifying, the Dutchman's race ended after just three corners. The reigning champion's Red Bull was tagged by the Mercedes of Andrea Kimi Antonelli at Turn 3, with the incident forcing Verstappen to retire from the action.
Reflecting on his incident with the Italian driver, Verstappen said: “The incident with Kimi on the first lap was unfortunate but no one does that on purpose and I knew it was an accident.
"He apologised to me when we were walking back from the track and he came to my room afterwards to apologise again, we get on very well, he is an amazing guy and a super talented driver.
Analysing Red Bull's performance on their home track at Spielberg, the four-time F1 champion urged the Milton Keynes-based outfit to get a better understanding of the RB21.
"P6 for Lawson this weekend is fantastic. Unfortunately for us this weekend there weren’t a lot of positives and although we were unlucky with the yellow flag in qualifying yesterday and the incident today, we lacked pace throughout.
"We will have a look at everything we did from this weekend, I know how hard the Team work and we need to get a better understanding of the car.
"We have had some amazing performances at this track in the past and I am the most disappointed about this result in front of a home crowd, but we will continue to try and do our best and my mentality and focus will not change."
