Verstappen reveals "limitations" with his Red Bull F1 car
Having failed to secure a place on the Spa F1 podium, four-time world champion Max Verstappen has revealed that Red Bull has been suffering from different limitations with its RB21.
Red Bull had opted for a skinny rear wing for the Sprint, and it proved a masterstroke. With better straight line speed than McLaren, Verstappen was able to overtake Oscar Piastri on the opening lap. From there, the Dutchman drove perfectly to keep the arguably faster McLarens at bay as he took the Sprint win.
However, the Dutch driver was left to rue his laps in the standard qualifying session after he was unable to split the McLaren, and got beaten by the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc as well.
With heavy rain forecast for the race, Red Bull elected to run Verstappen’s car with more downforce. However, it didn’t pay off as the majority of the grand prix was run in dry conditions.
Although Verstappen looked very competitive in the damp conditions in the opening stages of the race, he was unable to overtake Leclerc, finishing down in fourth spot.
His team-mate Yuki Tsunoda endured a difficult race on Sunday. The Japanese driver delivered his best qualifying performance at Red Bull on Saturday, but he spent the majority of race in traffic, and could not capitalize on a potential early switch from intermediates to slick tyres.
In the end, the Sagamihara-born driver finished down in P13, extending his pointless streak to five races.
“Today was quite disappointing and I think we were a bit unlucky. We set up for the wet and ultimately we didn’t do a wet race. We were pretty impacted because of the rear wing that we chose and because most of the race was dry.
"It was cautious and I felt like we could have done a few laps behind the safety car and ultimately, we want to make sure we don’t miss out on classic races as we can still have cool wet racing.
"When we went in with the slick tyres, every lap we saw Charles pulling away; he locked up in the last chicane which made it look closer but ultimately we weren’t fast enough.
Regarding the general performance of his car, Verstappen said: "The race today does also show some of the weaknesses that we have; it is clear that the upgrades did work but we are limited in other areas, including general tyre behaviour and management and the balance of the car.
"We tried to do the best that we could today but we will just have to keep pushing, keep trying to improve and we will go again," concluded Verstappen.
