Max Verstappen and Christian Horner admit title chance in jeopardy after F1 Italian GP show, as Sergio Perez wants gap to be larger between him and teammate.
It was another blow for Red Bull in F1 Italian GP after Verstappen finished sixth and Perez in eighth. They had no pace at all to challenge their rivals whether Mercedes, Ferrari and or McLaren, as the balance issue continue to hamper them throughout the grand prix.
Verstappen, in fact, had engine issues too which is why he couldn’t push enough to chase Lewis Hamilton. The results at Monza has made the Red Bull pair to admit their chances of F1 title for both drivers’ and constructors’ is diminishing now.
Verstappen has a 62 points lead over Lando Norris, while Red Bull now has only eight points to play with against McLaren. Even Ferrari is not far off the two in the pecking order. If things continue like this, there is a real possibility of losing both the F1 titles.
It seemed like Verstappen had similar issue to that of Perez. The Mexican has been at the receiving end for far too long, but he wants the gap between them to be large which will mean that Red Bull is in a healthy shape to take both the F1 titles.
Verstappen notes that he has already conveyed the issues that Red Bull is facing and it is now on the team to solve it. Horner, meanwhile, puts it on the viscous circle that they are in where co-relation has become its nemesis where numbers are not macthing.
They are in a fix to understand which data is correct and all eyes are on the track numbers, since that is always the reality than the numbers in CFD and wind tunnel. Horner also dismissed the notion of issues happening due to Adrian Newey’s departure.
Race troubles –
Verstappen: “I mean it was pretty boring, but yeah we were too slow. The pit stop also cost me a bit, I couldn’t run full power for most of the race as well with the engine, because we had a little issue. Also strategy wise, we could have done a better job to be at least a little bit more in the fight. It wouldn’t have changed the position, I think we didn’t do our optimal race. I think in the race and whole weekend, we were weak on a lot of fronts, and yeah pit stop like that again is not ideal.”
Perez: “Really we were not expecting it to be that bad. But already on laps, I could find that I couldn’t stop the car the way I wanted to. I couldn’t play with it. I think the hard wasn’t looking too bad but then the medium was quite tricky. We compromised a little bit of the strategy to try and keep George behind, who was quite a lot faster than us. Yeah, unfortunately, not enough and, yeah, we struggled with balance.”
Radio call –
Verstappen: “It had to do with my battery percentage, because there are certain levels where you are at in certain modes that you use. And basically I see the battery, of course, topping up, and at one point then maybe you can go into a faster mode. So I asked, and then they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, you can’. Come on! These are obvious things that they need to be on top of. I know that I’m not racing anyone, but that shouldn’t matter. It’s still in an F1 race where you have to maximise everything at specific tracks coming up.”
Feedback, timeline –
Verstappen: “I have said a lot but now it is upto the team to come with a lot of changes with the car, we basically went from a very dominant car to an undriveable car in the space of six to eight months. So that is very weird, for me, and yeah, need to really turn the car upside down. It doesn’t matter with where we are at the moment, we are bad everywhere, so we need a lot of changes. Unfortunately, I don’t have a degree in engineering or aerodynamics but I think I gave everything I can give.
“It was quite clear. For everyone. What we have to do. It’s just now we have to turn it around and it’s not easy to do that very quickly, and if we can put that on the car then it becomes more drivable again. The car is undriveable, massive balance problem and that is not only over one lap, it is all over the race. It doesn’t matter how many weeks, we have to just keep pushing and work flat out. There’s no excuse.”
Horner: “What’s really impressed me with Max is how he’s really engaged in this process. He’s not, he’s not panicking. He’s working with the engineers. He’s explaining very clearly where the issues are. He’s putting the time and effort in. He was in early this morning. He was on zoom calls last week and he’ll be on the simulator before the next race. He’s really working hard at this. And I think he’s shown great maturity as a world champion. The way he’s working with the engineering team. Nobody likes the situation we’re in at the moment. Nobody’s happy with it. We’ve got to work really hard to turn it around. But the one thing this team has is strength and depth and tact. And we’ll come back.”
Newey factor –
Verstappen: “I’ve always said I would have liked Adrian to stay, always, it’s not about that now because last year we had a great car, which was the most dominant car ever, and we basically turned it into a monster, so we have to turn it around.”
Horner: “Well he’d be working with all the same people, you know, F1 is a team sport, it’s a team issue, and the team will come up with the resolution. I think we would have had all of these issues because the issues were already there, and one man’s input could never be so dramatic so quickly. This started to really highlight itself in Miami, and Adrian was plugged in up until Friday of Miami, so there’s no way it would have been impacted so quickly.”
Championship –
Verstappen: “At the moment, both championships are not realistic. In a way yes [Lando finishing P3 helped], but that’s not how I like to look at the championship. We have to go from our own fortunes. Today, and the whole weekend, has been very bad.”
Perez: “I wish the gap was a lot bigger and that Max was winning. Because at the end that will only help the team in the constructors especially. We have some work to do to fix this issue and hopefully the next few races can be better.”
Horner: “With the pace we had today, both championships absolutely will be under pressure for sure. We have to turn the situation around very quickly. I think this circuit has exposed the deficiencies we have in the car versus last year, and I think that we have a very clear issue which has been highlighted this weekend. We know we have to get on top of and address, otherwise we put ourselves under massive pressure. And nobody puts us under more pressure than ourselves, because finishing sixth hurts.
“The reality was that Ferrari helped us out a bit, also the fighting between the two McLaren drivers, otherwise the drivers’ championship, there could be another chunk of points taken away from us. So, based on today’s performance, you’d say both are under absolute pressure. We were the fourth fastest car today. And as you know that’s the reality. We’ve got to turn it around if we want to make sure we win both titles. We have to put performance on the car.”
Car troubles, updates –
Horner: “I think on others perhaps running more downforce hides some of the balance issues we have. And you can see that we have a disconnection in balance that just isn’t working. As soon as you end up in that situation, you’re harder on tyres, you end up compensating, you move the balance around, you secure one problem and create another, so you just end up in a vicious circle. I think it’s been there for some time, I think actually really going through the data there were issues there at the beginning of the year in the characteristics. Others have obviously made a step and as we’ve pushed the package harder it’s exposed the issue. Even if you go back in the data there were a few races last year where we started to see this, in Austin, and so on. It’s a characteristic that we know we have to address, and it’s full focus at the factory at Milton Keynes to do that.
“I think if you dig into it there were some of these issues early in the year, even when we were winning races by 20 seconds. I think that recent upgrades, whilst it put load on the car, it’s disconnected the front and rear. We can see that, our wind tunnel doesn’t say that, but the track says that. So it’s getting on top of that, because obviously when you have that it means you can’t trust your tools, so then you have to go back to track data and previous experience. I think 100% it’s balance, we haven’t got a connection between front and rear. Max can’t lean on the rear on the way into the corner, or Checo, they end up compensating for that, creating understeer, and it’s such a fine line.
“You look at qualifying, on a scrubbed tyre with a balance we can do a 19.6s that matched the best times. Then two new set of tyres on and the balance is completely out and we go four and a half tenths slower. I think the most important thing is understanding the issue. And then I think there are certain fixes that potentially can be introduced. They will perhaps not resolve the whole issue, but address some of it. We’ve now got a two-week period before Baku and Singapore, and then we have another mini-break where we can work between Singapore and Austin. This time now is crucial.”
Perez: “I think it’s mainly balance. We need to be able to stop the car and be able to carry the speed. The problem is that we are not able to throw the car in. Because there really is nowhere. So it’s something we have to work on. I think the good thing is that we have no questions. Now we know exactly where the issue is. We can clearly see it on the data. It’s just how to fix it, how to attack it. And I think in the next few weeks are going to be very important. I’m already tomorrow in the factory with the team, with the engineer, because I think next week it’s going to be a very important one.”
Here’s slow stop for Max Verstappen: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-italian-grand-prix-max-verstappen-furious-with-slow-pit-stop.1809014716268125888
Here’s how F1 Italian GP panned out
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