Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen explains the reasons for his radio bursts in F1 Abu Dhabi GP en-route to second place.
To round out the 2019 F1 season in good spirits and secure third place in the drivers’ standings, Red Bull’s Verstappen sought a good result in Abu Dhabi GP and 55 laps after the lights went out, he was second behind Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton.
At the start, though, he lost a position to Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc on the straight. However, after his sole pit stop, the Dutchman passed the Ferrari driver, who switched to two-stop and bounced back to second, slotting in behind the race leader until the end of the race.
“The race was fine,” said Verstappen to the media including FormulaRapida.net. “Little bit of a shame about the first lap but then I think we had a good first stint, to go long and yeah, I think once we then put the hard tyres on, the pace was decent.
“I could get by Charles and then I could just do my own race. I mean, Lewis was too quick, so I was just focusing on my own race and lap-times.” Verstappen, however, did face challenges throughout the race, with one particular issue plaguing him for many laps.
His descriptions during the race over radio were vague, but he later clarified that he suffered from torque holes in acceleration. “I just had some torque holes on throttle,” said Verstappen. “There were delays and stuff, so it was not great.
“We couldn’t fix it, so we drove around the problem. At the end of the day, it wouldn’t have made a difference in terms of the result.” His race engineer did calm him down and conveyed that they cannot fix the issues until after the race.
Here’s how the F1 Abu Dhabi GP panned out
Charles Leclerc escapes penalty with Ferrari handed a fine
The story was written by Duncan Leahy and edited by Darshan Chokhani