Immediate nervousness
The Hungarian Grand Prix weekend immediately started uphill for Max Verstappen, who complained via radio to the team in the early stages of FP1 about the RB22’s downshifts. As if that weren’t enough, his former Toro Rosso teammate, Carlos Sainz, further fueled the four-time champion’s anger with an impeding incident that prompted Verstappen to overtake #55 and slow down in front of the Williams driver. An episode that ended up under the magnifying glass of the Stewards, with Sainz reprimanded for the incident and for the problems that arose in radio communications with his team, which failed to warn him of Verstappen’s arrival.
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What went wrong
Sandwiched between the two Ferraris in FP1, the Dutchman finished second in this session, albeit almost half a second behind leader Charles Leclerc. In FP2, the result was even more disappointing for #3, fourth but six tenths behind Lewis Hamilton: “Today it was a bit difficult to find a good balance in the car – he commented – we just need to try and sort things out a bit and make sure we can get a good lap out of the car for qualifying and then also for the race simulations. We will have to evaluate what we can do overnight and how we can find better performance in the car. We will analyze everything with the team and see if we can make some positive changes. Hopefully, this will help us find improvements ahead of FP3 and tomorrow’s qualifying.”
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After fourth position in FP1, Isack Hadjar was unable to repeat himself in the subsequent session, still finishing in 6th place. However, even for the Frenchman, the initial impressions were negative: “Today was a difficult day. The conditions were challenging for the car, especially in FP2 when the wind intensified. The car we had in FP1 was good and, in the long run, the pace was there, but after making changes for FP2, the conditions worsened and it seemed difficult to get reliable data. The car is there, but the Ferraris are very strong here, so we need to make up some lap time overnight. We have a good idea of where we can improve and hopefully, we can make some changes to take a step forward tomorrow.”
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