Why Max Verstappen ended F1 practice early in Brazil – Red Bull explains
Max Verstappen finished Friday’s Formula 1 practice sessions in Sao Paulo in third place. The Dutchman occupied that position in both sessions, in fact, and was also around two and a half tenths off the fastest driver in each session, with Lando Norris topping the first one and Kimi Antonelli the second.
Red Bull concludes that there is once again “enough potential” in the car to fight at the front, although not everything went smoothly for Verstappen at Interlagos. During the first practice session of the day, he complained – as usual – about the downshifts, while a problem with the power steering gave him a “proper workout” towards the end of the session.
In second practice, Verstappen provided one of the most entertaining team radio exchanges of the F1 season so far when he did not immediately understand a message from Tom Hart – who is once again replacing Gianpiero Lambiase as his race engineer this weekend – about the power unit and gearbox.
“So we have nothing on the switch, but they are adapting to you”, Hart said over the team radio. It prompted Verstappen to respond in an almost sing-song voice: “What does that mean? I have to speak to the engine myself? I think I should be like ‘oh, clutch, I’m switching! You’ll be punished otherwise!'”
More noteworthy was the fact that Verstappen ended the second practice session early. With just over six minutes remaining on the clock, the four-time world champion was already heading into the pitlane, apparently at his own suggestion, judging by the team radio exchanges.
Verstappen suggested coming in, to which Hart replied: “Okay, Max. If you want to box, then come in at the end of this lap. Radio has gone poor, for info.”
At the end of the practice day in Sao Paulo, Red Bull’s head of race strategy Hannah Schmitz explained why Verstappen had returned to the pits early: “So it was just [because of] finding a lot of inconsistencies in the long run and we didn’t feel like it was helpful anymore.
“We weren’t getting the data we needed. We knew the things that we wanted to be looking at and changing overnight, so we just went straight into that.”
That is particularly noteworthy, as coming in early also meant Verstappen gave up the opportunity to carry out a practice start on the grid. Given that the grid at the Autodromo José Carlos Pace slopes quite steeply uphill and Red Bull’s starts have not always been particularly good this year, that is remarkable.
After Verstappen got out of the car, mechanics were seen working underneath his RB22.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images
As for the competitive picture, Schmitz concludes that there should once again be plenty of potential for this weekend, after Verstappen won three of the last four Grands Prix.
“I think everyone agrees that there’s a lot of potential within the car, but with both drivers there are things that they want to look into and change overnight. But in a way that’s a good thing because that means we know what’s happening on the car and what we can address.
“There’s a lot of potential and optimism for the rest of the weekend.”
However, the weather forecast also needs to be taken into account. With Schmitz’s run plan, Red Bull tried to get a good understanding of all three tyre compounds, although the question remains how valuable that data will be given the changing temperatures and the possibility of rain.
“I think it was a very close call on which sessions you ran the hard and which session you ran the medium today”, Schmitz said.
“I think all of the top teams kind of tested all three compounds because they are so similar. It comes down a lot to driver preference, team tendency and preference, and those are the kind of things we’re trying to get to the bottom of.
“Today, obviously the conditions are quite different to what’s forecast for Sunday, so now we have to look at how we think that’s going to translate to what happens on Sunday. And I think that’s the difficult thing.”
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