Max Verstappen has praise for Red Bull teammate Isack Hadjar. The Dutchman states in Belgium, where he received help from the Frenchman in qualifying, that the collaboration has gone very well so far. “Isack is a smart guy.“
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Perhaps a little surprised, but in any case satisfied: that’s how Verstappen appeared at the press conference after his excellent qualifying at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit. He already mentioned immediately after the session that he partly owed P2 to teammate Hadjar, but shortly after he went deeper into the collaboration with the young Frenchman. He is in his first season at Red Bull Racing.
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“He is doing well and our collaboration is also good. Isack is a smart guy,” says the four-time world champion. The slipstream in both runs in Q3 proves how well the forces are combined. “We discussed it beforehand within the team and we quickly agreed. So we knew what we were going to do,” said Verstappen. He reasoned that Hadjar’s slipstream gave him about three tenths of a second.
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The place where the so-called tow took place was also carefully chosen. The question was whether something like that would be better in sector 1 or 3. Verstappen: “In the third free practice, for whatever reason, I had a slipstream in both the first and third sector. That was fairly balanced. But doing it at this spot, at the end of the lap, perhaps had just a little more effect.”
At one point Verstappen came very close behind his teammate. “But it was not too close. I was just driving flat out, that went well. And I also simply trust Isack. It was right.”
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