Retirement and weekend without points
Max Verstappen didn’t even see the checkered flag in this Chinese GP, but his mood at the end of the race probably wouldn’t have changed much even if he had scraped together a few championship points by the end of the weekend. In fact, after the race, albeit with a tone between calm and resigned, the Dutchman ruthlessly highlighted the myriad of problems afflicting the RB22 that have made it literally “undriveable“, to quote his words from recent days.
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Nothing is saved
“The start, obviously, was a big problem, just like yesterday. And the rest of the race, that was also like yesterday again: there is a lot of graining, the front end pushes, the pace is terrible, the setup is terrible, there is no grip in the corners. The troubles at the start? In Melbourne I had no battery and here the two problems in the Sprint and GP are the same. I simply have no power. As soon as I release the clutch, the engine isn’t there. I never saw myself even close to being able to compete with Mercedes, but this weekend was particularly bad”, Verstappen emphasized.
The hope is that in the next tracks coming up on the calendar, starting with Suzuka, Red Bull can react and at least partially climb back up: “For me it’s no surprise that we’re not close to Mercedes, Ferrari or McLaren – the four-time world champion reiterated – but this weekend was particularly bad. I hope we can be a bit more confident. After Japan [given the cancellations of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia] we will have a few more weeks to focus a bit more on the car. We are not where we want to be. I know everyone, obviously, is doing their best. I think everyone in the team and at the factory is as frustrated as we were this weekend. Maybe in Japan it will go a bit better”, he concluded bitterly.
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