Verstappen on pit-exit incident: 'Tried to push me into the wall'
Verstappen on pit-exit incident: ‘Tried to push me into the wall’
Max Verstappen is not entirely satisfied after the second free practice session at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The Red Bull Racing driver has yet to find the right balance with his RB19, and then it didn’t help either that a total of perhaps only 25 minutes could actually be driven at the Yas Marina Circuit.
Few miles for Max
Verstappen had ceded his seat to Jake Dennis in the first free practice session. The 26-year-old Dutchman was therefore hoping for a productive FP2 with both qualifying runs and longruns, but little came of it. Due to red flags caused by Carlos Sainz and later Nico Hulkenberg, Verstappen was only given limited time to put in miles.
Whether Verstappen was able to learn anything this Friday? “Well, yeah, not so much. I think also from our side the balance was very off. A lot of understeer and a lot of jumping, so definitely a few things to figure out for tomorrow,” he told GPblog and others .
After today’s second red flag, everyone wanted to go out on the track at the same time. All that did not go fast enough for Verstappen as he overtook three cars at pit exit. Max did not sound very happy over the board radio with the driving behaviour of his predecessors. “No, they have to move. I mean, they’re all driving slow and I want to go out because we’re all limited on time, and they just keep on driving in the middle. And then, when I tried to pass, they tried to squeeze me in the wall. So, yeah, a bit silly.”
Work to do
For Red Bull, there is the necessary homework on the shelf to go into qualifying and the race well prepared. Tomorrow, Verstappen and his team still have 60 minutes to get everything on track. “A lot to figure out for FP3 to be good in qualifying, but we’ll see,” he said. Verstappen concluded: “I also didn’t expect us to be so far off, so that’s also a bit of a question mark for us. I mean, we’re still P3. It’s not too bad. But balance-wise, I think it can be a lot better. So, we’ll try and have a look at what happened there.”