Max Verstappen says power delivery problems prevented him from getting the most out of the Red Bull during second practice.
He ended the session sixth-fastest, a tenth of a second behind Nico Hulkenberg’s Renault and two-tenths behind the quickest of the Mercedes drivers.“It’s OK but it can be better,” said Verstappen after practice. “We still didn’t find the right set-up.
“We knew that Ferrari was going to be quick and they are. We still have some work to do, especially on the softest tyres.”
Verstappen described the power drops which affected at least two of his laps. “I had some issues in general in the fastest lap with the power, not having full power,” he said.
“I think on the medium tyre we actually look quite competitive. I should have been first on that tyre. Again I had a power release out of the last corner, I lost three-tenths with that.”
The team’s weaker pace on the soft tyre has left Verstappen concerned about their potential performance in qualifying. “In one way we look competitive but then for qualifying we still don’t look that competitive so we have some work to do,” he admitted.
Pierre Gasly was only 12th in the other Red Bull after what he described as a “messy” qualifying simulation run.
“I think FP1 was good, we had decent pace,” he said. “The beginning of FP2 was great as well.
“Just the soft run was quite a messy run. I didn’t manage to do it on the first run, [had] traffic in turn one. We tried something which didn’t work so it wasn’t the cleanest run.
“I think we have a good direction, we’re lacking a bit of pace with the soft tyre but we’re going to work tonight to find extra performance for tomorrow.”
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Jere (@jerejj)
29th March 2019, 18:09
Similar to what he endured in Singapore and Mexico (on his last run in Q3, which probably cost him a shot at pole there in the process).
erikje
29th March 2019, 18:23
Possible but different software and at different times.
On of the test items during practice is the engine mapping and the way the power is deployed. With the Renault engine the manufacturer did not succeeded in finding the right solution. Honda can use fp3 to adapt the settings.
We will see if this is enough.
krxx
29th March 2019, 19:17
He did NOT complain during his last run in Q3. Only AFTER he saw RIC got pole, as usual. And his complaints in Mexico earlier in the weekend didn’t stop him from topping FP1, 2 and 3, now did they? In quali he was just beaten by his faster teammate, who not only pulled off a better lap time, but his three ‘best sector times’ were also faster than any of VERs in the whole weekend.
And in Singapore he was 0.66s faster than his teammate who beat him in quali overall 7-5 when circumstances where equal, and 3(!) places in terms of grid spots. So 0.66s while the difference between them, if VER doesn’t crash, is only a few hundredths of a sec, never exceeding 0.275s. So that’s 2.5x the biggest difference between them. I highly suspect RIC had an ‘unspoken’ problem.
Gio
31st March 2019, 8:49
“I prefer Ricciardo to Verstappen” usually precedes an anti-RIC and pro-VER sentiment.
To say RIC only outqualified VER 5 times, is NOT to include Monaco. But he did outqualify him, didn’t he? Pole VS not at all (or 20th), so he OUTQUALIFIED him. Or did VER qualify higher up on the grid than RICs pole? That’s 6.
I think the 7th you missed is Russia. RIC outqualified VER 18th to 19th, yet in most media outlets, who have heavy incentives to hype VER, have RIC losing that one. That’s 7. Including 2 poles vs 0.
In races the difference was even much bigger in RICs favour.
mark (@mpt2201)
29th March 2019, 18:20
hmm so last year this was claimes a problem with the renault engine, same problem with a honda engine oh really me thinks this ia a red bull problem or max problem
erikje
29th March 2019, 18:26
not quite what happened with the Renault. That engine was stuttering in its power deployment.
Not the same.
Homerlovesbeer (@homerlovesbeer)
30th March 2019, 2:35
I can’t wait for the race where Max blows his stack and calls his Honda engine a POS hehe.
Will be very entertaining :D
Chaitanya
30th March 2019, 3:13
With the burned bridge of Renault and Silver Arrows and Ferrari blacklisting RBR for engine supply. This team and their golden boy sure will be in worse state than McLaren/Alonso if they start pointing blame blatently with Honda.
krxx
29th March 2019, 18:52
It is a max roblem for sure. The only constant is he.
Also, engine mapping is a driver thing. Last year he had his mapping set up one way, and after his blunder in quali, he changed the mapping and never encountered the same ‘issue’ again. Ofcourse when he got back to the garage and began speaking to the media, he tried to blame Renault, like he always tries to put the blame on others and see whether he can get away with it, but even Horner didn’t want to take the rap for him on this one.
“A sudden increase of 150BHP, like a switch was pulled on”, hhhhh.
@mpt2201
Pironi the Provocateur (@pironitheprovocateur)
29th March 2019, 23:59
Now they can fight.
oycntoyr
30th March 2019, 6:09
Renault takes the first burned pu this year.
“You lose ” honda!