Max Verstappen rues set-up change which troubled him in F1 Azerbaijan GP race, as he addresses the title fight scene.
Already after qualifying, Red Bull’s Verstappen was downbeat for F1 Azerbaijan GP race. He kind of knew that the set-up choice that the Dutchman has made is not correct when compared to Sergio Perez and that he will suffer in the grand prix.
The team tried to make it for better but the direction didn’t pay off, as he ended up salvaging fifth in the end after late collision ahead. “I think we just paid the price with the change that we made into qualifying,” said Verstappen to media. “That made it just really difficult to drive. The car was jumping around a lot.
“The wheels were coming off the ground in the low-speed corners, so when you don’t have a contact patch with the tarmac, it’s very difficult. The set-up was different to Checo. You win and lose as a team. We thought it would be a good direction to go into and at the end, it wasn’t. It was not a surprise, then after we tried to make it even better but unfortunately, we made it worse.
“It is [a wasted opportunity], but you can also turn it around and say they could have done a better job as well, right? So it is what it is. I think we learned a lot – the car did feel a bit better than what we had before, but, with the set-up, we maybe went the wrong way and we’ll try to do better. Overall, the behaviour is better.
“Unfortunately, we made few wrong decisions going into qualifying and that we paid the price for. If you look at my race, probably everything just was the worst-case scenario, my general balance that I had and then being stuck behind Alex and Lando. So yeah, then, of course, it’s not a surprise at all,” summed up Verstappen.
He was not too happy to see Red Bull lose the constructors’ lead to McLaren, but some of it was also due to the crash of Perez and Carlos Sainz. “Of course it is never really nice to see that,” he said. “Didn’t help, of course, what happened there with Checo and Carlos, I am sure that we can do better. The fight is not over yet. We will try to get that back.”
On his battle with Norris, the Brit was able to pass him after starting from 15th. He took away three points to lower it to 59. After feeling a bit low early on, Verstappen was a bit 50-50 this time about the prospects of retaining his F1 title.
He also distanced himself from stating that the fight is same as against Lewis Hamilton in 2021. “If we do a better job ourselves, they need to have a perfect weekend till the end,” started Verstappen, on the chances of Norris taking the title. “It’s probably positive for me. I would have liked to extend the gap, but with our race, I’m so happy that it was only that.
“I guess in a way, [it is an advantage]. But I don’t like to, of course, always be P6 myself. So we need to do a bit better. I think today already showed that, for example, with Checo, when he was a bit happier, the car was performing a bit better, we are in that fight.. Okay, maybe we didn’t win, but we were in that fight with Checo.
“So, I think from now onwards, we can be in that fight constantly if we keep improving the car step by step, a little bit after our findings on Monza. As for previous battles, no, because in 2021, it was just between two drivers, like we were always 1 and 2 for most of the races and the rest had a big gap behind, it was quite different.
“And anyways, these cars also race very different when compared to 2021,” summed up Verstappen, as team boss Horner noted of the Dutchman going through the tyres quicker than Perez, while adding on Norris taking away points from the Red Bull driver.
“Yeah, Max definitely was going through the tyre quicker, both on the medium and on the hard tyre,” said Horner. “So again, we’ve got to look at the variances in setup between the two cars to understand that. As for the title, I mean, if you look at it before the weekend, based on where we were in Monza, what is he [Lando Norris] taking?
“Three points off him. It’s frustrating, particularly after where Lando qualified, that we didn’t beat him today. But thankfully, he hasn’t scored big points. But we’ve got to build on what we’ve learned already and there’s still a lot of racing to do.”
Here’s Lando Norris passing Max Verstappen: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-azerbaijan-grand-prix-norris-powers-past-championship-rival-verstappen-for-p6.1810269695517780376
Here’s Lando Norris on passing Max Verstappen
Here’s Sergio Perez, Christian Horner on the collision
Here’s how F1 Azerbaijan GP panned out
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