Max Verstappen beats Red Bull’s sensors
Finishing second with the fourth car on the grid: there could have been, and there have been, Sundays decidedly worse than the Hungarian GP for Max Verstappen. Yet, the Dutch champion was quite clear in saying that, despite the Budapest result where he managed to maximize the Red Bull package by achieving an unexpected second place – also thanks to that superb overtake on Lewis Hamilton – the structural problems of the RB22 certainly do not end with a second place at the Hungaroring. Team principal Laurent Mekies knows this well too, as he is trying everything to renew the contract with his most valuable asset, perhaps without an early exit clause, and in an interview with the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf he admitted that sometimes Max’s “feel” even goes beyond the data collected from sensors and telemetry.
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The story of Laurent Mekies
“Max Verstappen – explains the French engineer interviewed by Erik Van Haren – has an incredible sensitivity in the car and leads us as a team with his feedback. Only, we don’t always manage, so to speak, to match his sensitivity with our technical support. Moreover, it is true that there are limited possibilities to compromise, because finding the right setup requires great precision and, if we stray too far from the preset parameters, this affects lap time”.
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“However, it is a fact – he adds – that Max perceives things that we cannot measure with our current data analysis and the sensors present in the car. On this, I am very honest. It is the result of his extraordinary sensitivity in the car and the technical level he possesses. I don’t see it as a worrying factor, but rather as a great strength. To give an example, at the beginning of this year Verstappen had already sensed there was a problem with the steering box and we couldn’t identify it. But thanks to him we managed to solve the issue. So, as a team, we only benefit from his presence”.
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