Max Verstappen revealed problems with his RB21 during both Friday practice sessions as his F1 title defence kicked off at the Australian GP.
Max Verstappen’s weekend in Melbourne got off to an understated start on Friday, the new RB21 failing to feature at the top of the leaderboards.
Verstappen struggled for raw pace during both sessions, but outwardly, the car did not appear to lacking in any particular area.
Finishing down in 7th, Verstappen spoke after the session about why the RB21 was off the pace compared to McLaren and Ferrari.
The reigning world champion revealed that he struggled with grip but was not surprised by the car’s lacklustre performance.
Red Bull was most concerned by the Dutchman’s admission that the Friday issues would not be fixed quickly.
“To be honest, the balance wasn’t even completely out. No massive or major problems.
“But somehow, the grip was not coming alive. I was just struggling on all four tyres, really, in Sector 1 and the last sector. That means, of course, that were are not really up there at the moment.”
“The problem is that it’s not really like I have major balance problems. I think it will be a bit hard to fix.
“It’s also nothing that I didn’t expect when I arrived here. I’m not positively or negatively surprised with the pace we are showing.
“We just have to make sure that we find a bit more pace, but at the moment we are definitely lacking a bit to fight up front.”
Struggles for Lawson
New team-mate Liam Lawson also had a challenging day on the opening day of track action at the Australian GP.
Finished in 17th, over a second slower than Verstappen, the New Zealander could not pinpoint his pace problems.
“[I’m] comfortable [in the car] – just too slow. We obviously have a lot of work to do overnight.
“Day one, on a new track, we were expecting to have some work to do, but probably not this much. We’ll work on it overnight and then try and improve it for tomorrow.”
A tough day: “Not really. I think if we knew that we’d know how to fix it as well.
“In general, just grip when we need to use it on that short run, but then in general our long run pace was slow as well. We’ll work on it.”
Feature Image Credit: Red Bull Content Pool/Clive Rose/Getty Images
