Max Verstappen says he is happy with Red Bull’s progress on Thursday, despite a dramatic mid-morning spin that brought out the red flags.
Verstappen was on duty for Red Bull Racing on Thursday morning, and was one of the few drivers to head out on track during the particularly damp conditions at the start of the session.
As the track improved, Verstappen had a snap spin at the chicane in the cool temperatures, but had a much more dramatic spin later in the morning as the track improved.
Approaching Turn 5, Verstappen turned in but lost the rear of the car and slid off backwards into the gravel trap. Beached, he had to clamber out and the car brought back on a recovery truck. The session was briefly red-flagged while the car was recovered and, with no damage to the car, Verstappen was back on track half an hour later.
“I think i just touched the white line and there was a bit of damp patch which i did not see in the car but on the on-board afterwards i saw it. I just tried to use a bit too much road.”
Having lost a few hours of vital run time due to the inclement weather, Verstappen said the team were still able to get all the data they wanted: “It was a bit of a shame in the morning with the weather but its the same for everyone but we were able to test all our things and get an understanding of the car. I think, so far, we are pretty happy about it. Every day we are improving and learning more about the car and whats exactly what we want to do.”
“I think in the end of the day still we tried everything we wanted to,” continued Verstappen. “We got all the information we wanted to, of course, you always want to do more laps but the track was not helping in the morning otherwise I could have done probably 40 – 50 laps. I had my own little spin cause i touched the damp patch on the track which didn’t help with the amount of laps but overall I think its still all good.”
