Max Verstappen still sees a lot of work ahead for Red Bull at Monza. The driver only took part in the second free practice on Friday for the Italian GP. That session was then entirely focused on Verstappen’s struggles with the RB22. Yet the four-time world champion remains optimistic: “Our gap to the leaders is big, but I hope we can reduce it over one lap in qualifying.”
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Max Verstappen did not end Friday at Monza with a very hopeful session. The Dutchman complained about the downforce and grip of his RB22 over the team radio. “It’s like I’m driving on ice,” he said. “And the brakes don’t work either.” The adjustments Red Bull made to the car in the pit lane barely helped.
After FP2, Verstappen shared his thoughts on the first day at Monza. “It was difficult to get the car’s balance right today,” he told his team Red Bull. “We need to work on that on Saturday to achieve some faster lap times. Our gap to the leaders is still big, but I hope we can reduce it a bit over one lap in qualifying. Hopefully, we will be closer together in the race and the long runs will come together better, but that is harder to predict.”
The Dutchman hopes Red Bull can still make improvements to the RB22 overnight from Friday to Saturday. “We will look tonight at what we can do with the car and whether we can make positive changes to find the right corner balance,” he continued. “Of course, I only drove in one session on Friday, but it was good that Ayumu (Iwasa, reserve driver, ed.) got the chance to drive.”
Read more Second Free Practice (FP2) Results Italian GP
‘It didn’t help that Max didn’t drive during FP1’
Red Bull’s technical director, Pierre Waché, is also concerned about the second free practice. “I think we clearly have a balance problem with the car, that’s the main thing,” the top man agrees with Verstappen. “Honestly, it feels a bit like Zandvoort, and we are trying to find out what the problem is. We are trying to solve it in a different way through setup and car parts.”
According to Waché, it didn’t help Red Bull that Verstappen only spent one hour in the RB22 on Friday. “The balance problem is what we are mainly focusing on now,” he continued. “It doesn’t help that Max didn’t drive during FP1 and only got in the car in FP2. We then have less time to react, but now we have to react before FP3.”
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