Max Verstappen reckons it will be a tough outing for Red Bull Racing, especially against Ferrari in this weekend’s F1 Canadian GP.
While Red Bull hasn’t overtaken Ferrari so far in 2019 F1 season but the team is closing in on the Italian manufacturer, especially with them struggling in the races. Its more like Red Bull catching Ferrari at a faster rate than Ferrari catching Mercedes.
The German team, though, remains at the head of the pack. For Red Bull though, there never has been a doubt in its chassis performance which has been more or less top notch every year, but they have been let down by engine performance at times.
With Renault, they eked out victories at certain circuits but lacked in some. It is pretty similar with Honda for now, but the Japanese manufacturer is slowly catching up. The foremost challenge for them is to have a sound reliability and then go for performance.
It seems like working with Red Bull only 29 points behind Ferrari, while the Italian manufacturer is 118 behind Mercedes after six races. Even though there is momentum in Red Bull’s hands, Verstappen doesn’t expects the team to be up there in Canada.
The circuit has long straights and less corners where power plays an important role, which for the moment is not Honda’s advantage. “The track is actually pretty challenging, even though it looks like there are quite a lot of straights” said Verstappen.
“The chicanes and how you ride the kerbs is important as it can compromise you a lot if you make a mistake. It’s all connected, left to right or right to left, if you make a mistake on one of them, then your whole sequence is destroyed.
“It’s a fun track, at least you can overtake if needed and I always enjoy going there. I expect Ferrari to be more competitive in Canada, so for us it may be a bit more difficult, but as always we will try and maximise the result.”
His teammate Pierre Gasly, who has slowly started to find rhythm, expects for a good outing even though there is apparent lack. It will only be his second time at Montreal and first with Red Bull. “I’ve only been to Canada once before,” he said.
“So I don’t know much about Montreal but I’m happy to be going back and it’s a track that’s usually good for the team. Max finished third there last year and Daniel got his first win with the team in Montreal, so it’s always been pretty successful for Red Bull.
“I think you always relate a track with your previous performance there and I was P11 in 2018 so it was OK, but this year I will be aiming for much better.” The Frenchman will need to continue his upsurge in performance, especially with all kinds of speculations.
Many low-key media wrote about Red Bull’s apparent interest in Nico Hulkenberg, but they forgot that Red Bull hardly goes for any driver other than the affiliated ones – whether the current or the past. Probably, Dr. Helmut Marko’s quotes were lost in translation.
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