More Red Bull reliability problems left Max Verstappen frustrated after qualifying.
“It’s not really nice to be in fifth,” said Verstappen, who was bumped down from third by the two Ferraris at the end of Q3.
Verstappen was quickest in both practice sessions yesterday but lost time due to a stoppage in final practice.
“Of course the problem in P3 was not ideal,” he said. “But also in Q2 I had some issues with going to the limiter, the engine was cutting out a bit. So that was not good.”
“And then in Q3 my final lap where it of course counts I was three tenths faster than my previous lap time and then I lost gear sync so on the straights just losing a lot of lap time. Which is of course very painful. We need to get on top of that because it shouldn’t happen.”
Verstappen said his engine problem in qualifying was “more or less similar” to the one he experienced in practice. “And then we fixed it, and it was fine. But then we lost gear sync in Q3 again. A lot of issues, we need to get on top of it.”
However Verstappen drew some encouragement from his car’s performance following Renault’s latest revisions.
“You can see there is a bit more horsepower, so that’s good,” he said. “But we always want more.”
“I think in general on this track of course I’m a bit disappointed at the moment with fifth, even with all the issues, we should have been third.”
“So I think we definitely made a step forward with such long straights. The second sector where all the corners are we are in the fight so that’s good.”
hahostolze (@hahostolze)
24th June 2017, 15:59
Verstappen is having a bit of an Alonso. Driving out of his skin but getting very little to show for it. Knowing Verstappen, I might get worried when he starts doing an Alonso in the media too. ‘Best drive ever’, etc.
NeverSummer
24th June 2017, 17:37
Don’t think Max has to Hahostolze….Max his performances on track tell the whole tale
Rick (@)
24th June 2017, 17:59
@hahostolze Completely agree. I’m a bit of a Verstappen fan (together with Vettel and Alonso) so I’ve been trying to keep count and this was the 4th time in free practice/quali and also twice in the race that a technical issue arose. Not all cases immediately affected his result (in Q or R), but nonetheless when you combine this with some of Ricciardo’s technical issues I think Red Bull might be the worst reliable car except for McLaren-Honda.
In Canada he would’ve at least finish 3rd (possible 2nd) just as in Bahrain. Both were DNFs for him. If we count him into those positions and just compare with Ricciardo who would’ve then finished 6th in Bahrain and 4th in Canada, their points would now be:
Verstappen 75
Ricciardo 62
Which would’ve put Verstappen above Raikkonen in the championship at 4th, while he’s now a mere point in front of Perez.
Of course it’s always if, if, if. And I know that technical failures are (to a certain degree) a part of racing, but I think in this modern era a team shouldn’t have more than 2-3 technical failures over the course of a whole season for both drivers combined.
Simply put, I think that purely based on reliability Mercedes and Hamilton will win this years championship. Ferrari also shows some problem here and there, not as much as Renault though and let’s not even get started on Honda.
Pyon (@pyon)
24th June 2017, 23:57
Why do you put Renault as the main culprit for RB issues? More often than not those are car hydrolic or gear box problem, so not really Renault’s problem from what I can tell.
Jim
24th June 2017, 16:46
The man is totally been on top of Ricciardo, race after race. He is the better driver now. Which shows his development as a driver. But he doesn’t have the results to show for it.
He should stay calm, continue to beat Ricciardo and his time will come.
John Steed
24th June 2017, 17:57
Totally agree with you Jim. Beat RIC, stay calm and his time will come.
Rick (@)
24th June 2017, 18:09
Jim, I totally agree with you. He’s still a very young guy and only Stroll is currently younger than him I think, which means he has more years ahead of him than people like Lewis, Kimi or Seb will ever achieve, simply because they were at least 3-4 years older when they made their debut.
That said though, it’s extremely frustrating to have the equipment to be 4th in the championship, ahead of Raikkonen and 13 points ahead of Ricciardo (see my comment above) but in reality he seriously needs to be afraid of losing his 6th place to Perez. Given his age, it’s understandable that he gets frustrated about it and hasn’t learned yet how to fully cope with these situations. In other words: you cannot expect a young man of just 19 to have the life experience and calmness of a ~30 year old. So let him find his way, believe me when he finally reaches 22, he’ll have 6 years of F1 experience and only then has reached the age at which Hamilton made his F1 debut at McLaren.
Ju88sy (@)
24th June 2017, 18:25
@addvariety right, he has time on his side in a way no other driver in F1 has had before. Personally I don’t mind his outbursts, he’s very young and getting frustrated, this experience will only help him in the future when he inevitably will have car reliability issues again!
Overall I have been disappointed with Ricciardo’s performance this year considering how roundly he beat Seb in 2014. He doesn’t seem have moved forward this season in the way other drivers have done, however to his credit he has finished well given the sniff of an opportunity!
ia
24th June 2017, 18:50
At least he doesn’t react like a grown man like Alonso, who embarrasses his team.
I think Max acts quiet grown-up.
Remember Vettel last year.
Nigel
24th June 2017, 20:19
The child is always complaining about something. Someone should give him his milk so he can shut the hell up.
Patrick (@anunaki)
24th June 2017, 20:35
You are also complaining right now
Have a milk
EC (@dutch-1)
24th June 2017, 22:13
That’s a + 5!
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
24th June 2017, 20:48
I think it is still too soon to say Verstappen is overall better than Ricciardo. We have barely had the chance to see them against each other in the races. Verstappen has looked better in qualifying. I certainly can admit that. But they have only had 2 full races where they have both finished. One in China and one in Monaco. Verstappen clearly was better in China but during the race in Monaco, they were about equal. Ricciardo may have had an advantage, but he performed very well indeed anyway when he was given the opportunity. 2 races just isn’t enough to say Verstappen is better considering that Ricciardo looked better over most of last season. If I add all the laps they have both been on track during the races excluding China and Monaco. It has only been 28. This just isn’t enough time to compare them. Verstappen may have almost always been ahead when either one of them retired, but as the retirement was always at or near the start, we don’t have any idea who will have finished ahead at the end. Whenever one of them did retire, they were never far apart.
I still agree with what Martin Brundle says. Verstappen has improved massively, but I still think Ricciardo just about has the edge over Verstappen in terms of race pace. But IMO, Verstappen really has improved in qualifying and Ricciardo seems to be trying that little bit too hard some of the time.
But I don’t get how people can say Verstappen is better overall when we’ve only had 2 races and 28 laps of the rest out of 8 when they were both on track. That is just not enough time to prove who is overall the better driver.
GtisBetter (@)
24th June 2017, 23:52
Verstappen is the better one at street circuits though.
Jim
25th June 2017, 6:53
You might think Ricciardo is better in races, but they drove like 192 laps so far together this year and Ricciard was only ahead of Verstappen on 58 of them.
If you look at last year the improvement compared to Ricciardo is massive, the figures show that. This weekend show the same so far. At 19 Verstappen is getting on top of Ricciardo.
hahostolze (@hahostolze)
25th June 2017, 7:28
If you blink you’ll miss it. They said rock and roll would be dead by Christmas. What you’re seeing (or failing to) is Verstappen improving to a point where he’s clearly on top of Ricciardo and everything in Ricciardo’s driving is proving it.
If you maintain that Ricciardo is overall still better, fine. You still have stats on your side. But then Bobbie Vinton was outselling the Beatles in 1963. Cusp of a wave.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
25th June 2017, 10:00
@hahostolze
I’m only talking about during the race. During the race, Ricciardo hasn’t made mistakes. They’ve had one equal race and one where I admit Verstappen was clearly better. All the other races we just didn’t have enough time to compare them. So overall, I simply don’t see how we can confirm Verstappen is overall better just yet. I’m not saying it won’t turn out to be true, but we need many more races with them both racing each other to see who is better. Or they could be basically equal. Verstappen is better at certain things but Ricciardo is too at others. The race is what matters more than practice or qualifying. I’m still thinking Ricciardo is slightly better based on last year and the fact we’ve hardly seen them against each other this year. As I’ve said before I think the first few laps are irreverent to compare them as we have no clue what will have happened later. I fully agree the points should be much closer, but I still reckon Ricciardo will have been ahead, although not by much. IMO, he seems to not show his form in practice and he has got a little worse in qualifying, but his race pace is still very strong and a will be little better than Verstappen overall. Verstappen was just better when it was wet in China.
2 full races out of 8 isn’t enough to decide who is better. It would be like deciding part way through Bahrain who the best driver was during the races for the rest of the season as 2 and a bit races have passed. Not enough time!
Even if there was a load of laps to say who was ahead most of the time, it’s only like saying Bottas has been better than Hamilton this season because he’s clearly beaten Hamilton in 2 races and been ahead in another for a decent amount of laps. Bottas was ahead of Hamilton for every single lap in Russia and Monaco. He as also ahead for a fair few laps at the start of Bahrain. If either Hamilton or Bottas had retired in every other race, would that really make it look like Bottas was the better driver? I don’t think so. This and the Verstappen – Riccirado comparison I think both would be unfair. Just because Verstappen has improved in qualifying and had clearly been better in just one of the 2 races they have both finished is no evidence of him now being the better of the 2.
I think we should wait until much later this year before we say either of them is clearly better.
hahostolze (@hahostolze)
25th June 2017, 10:03
I really don’t see how, retirements being equal, Ricciardo would be ahead. It doesn’t extrapolate from the situations that were in the races, nor from the intangible ‘form’ both have shown. But fair do’s.
hahostolze (@hahostolze)
25th June 2017, 10:06
Especially because the race pace argument is unconvincing. Last season that was the aspect in which they were the closest (ie, Verstappen arguably ahead) and that hasn’t changed. The only change is Verstappen leading the quali now too. But yes, you’ll point to the impossibility of proving this due to all the retirements, which is fair, but to me ignores the reality in the paradigm shift
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
25th June 2017, 10:22
@hahostolze
Fair enough. We can have different opinions :)
I only “think” Ricciardo would be ahead if they’d had no retirements this year as I still think his overall performance during the races is a little better. While it was close last year. It was often Verstappen that would make a mistake every now and then that cost him a little. For example, his Monaco performance last year and the race where he through the team had pitted him when they hadn’t. I’m not saying this will have happened but I think Verstappen may have had at leased 1 of 8 races where he made some sort of costly mistake based on his past. Where as if I base Ricciardo’s form this year on last year, he never seems to make mistakes during the races. I think their race pace will be similar, but due to the fact we still saw small and big errors from Verstappen in the races last year and Ricciardo was faultless, I think we will need time to see who is better.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
25th June 2017, 10:24
thought not through!
bogaaaa (@nosehair)
25th June 2017, 8:57
Ben Rowe.. Great post and completely agree!! VES is good but early days!!
Joao (@johnmilk)
24th June 2017, 22:20
If things keep going like this, it will be a season similar to the one where Kvyat and Ricciardo were at RBR. This time with Ric playing the role of Kvyat, and Max as Ric.
Very impressive stuff, especially on saturdays, let’s hope for more real action between the two on sundays as well
Scottie (@scottie)
25th June 2017, 1:53
He doesn’t realize it’s purely due to his crash in FP2.
Sure, the replacement should be as good, but there’s never any guarantees.
Calm your farm Max!
Jim
25th June 2017, 6:55
The team did not say that is was related to the FP2 crash, and the problems Max had hardly seem technically related to that crash, but you have inside info I understand?
JeffreyJ
25th June 2017, 8:41
Helmut Marko has said the loss of gearresteerd sinc was due to verstappen ‘ s own mistake, not the teams. The article is on F1 today
TerryS
25th June 2017, 23:19
Could it be the reason Verstappen is faster than Riccardo at times is he is driving the car beyond it’s limits and causing damage. Been think about this a bit, ok in qualifying but you can’t trash your car just to go that little bit faster. It’s happened too many times now just to be bad luck imo.
TerryS
25th June 2017, 23:43
“I had some issues with going to the limiter, the engine was cutting out a bit”, says it all really. That confirms it for me I’m thinking he’s trashing the car.