Max Verstappen felt it was better than expected in F1 Bahrain GP, as he notes on where the car felt different from last year.
After qualifying in F1 Bahrain GP, it seemed slightly close between teams but they were still wary of race pace of Red Bull. And it came true in the grand prix after Verstappen took the win by 22.457s where he looked unbeatable and in a different league.
He felt comfortable in the car after trying to fix the balance issues during practice. “I think the race was probably better than expected,” said Verstappen. “The thing that changed was the wind and the intensity of it. So yeah, it just felt a bit better. I just had a better feeling with the car and I could look after my tyres quite well at the same time.
“So that was very positive. Probably a bit more how it was in testing as well. I just felt very comfortable with the car. That really showed, so I’m very happy to kickstart the season like this, but also as a team, to have a 1-2 is just fantastic. But I also think that in general other teams are closer.
“I just think that everything just worked really, really well, and I of course don’t expect that to happen every single Grand Prix in the near future but still, we’ll take it, we’ll look back at it, of course, we’ll analyse it and we’ll try to improve further. I think everything just went really well. The balance, the feeling for myself in the car. And that is not always like that.
“I mean, sometimes you win races, but you’re maybe not very happy with how you were feeling with the car or the balance of the car. But yeah, the race that was all very good,” summed up Verstappen, who noted that Red Bull isn’t too great on one lap, but it is much better on the race side.
Comparing it with RB19, Verstappen feels RB20 is better on low speed with the improvements. “I do think that we are just not that great on one lap performance for whatever reason with the car,” he said. “But luckily it’s very good in the race for most tracks. Naturally, of course, you focus a little bit more on the race, but yeah, it just seems like other teams can maybe extract a little bit more over one lap than us for whatever reason.
“So that’s what we’ll look at for the coming races. But yeah, I really think that also just… The circumstances with the wind helped us out a bit more compared to the last two days. So probably it was not in our favor with how the car is responding at the moment. I think the feeling in the car is pretty similar, just a little bit better. I think that is what we really wanted.
“I mean, last year’s car was already very good, with some tiny improvements here and there. I think especially also a bit more low speed, the car just feels a bit better. But overall, when I jumped in, it didn’t feel like a completely different car to drive or whatever. So that was positive.
“And, yeah, for sure, it’s always a little bit of, maybe for me more than the team, a question mark. Like, if you look at the car, you’re like, oh, is this going to work? But clearly, they have done their homework. They trust all the simulations and also the wind tunnel. And it has shown the last few years, that they have been very good at it,” summed up Verstappen.
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