Verstappen hopes “really difficult” weekend “doesn’t happen too often”

Max Verstappen insists Red Bull have had a more difficult weekend than usual at Imola, despite continuing his run of pole positions.

Neither Red Bull appeared in the top three during any of the practice sessions. But he was on the pace in qualifying and pipped the McLaren drivers to pole position by a few hundredths of a second, albeit aided by a tow from Nico Hulkenberg.

Team principal Christian Horner credited the input from simulator drivers Sebastien Buemi and Jake Dennis overnight in improving the car’s set-up. After qualifying Verstappen said the team “tried a lot of things, quite different to what we had yesterday.

“But then even this morning, it was not really feeling that great because the balance shifted the other way. So we were just really getting into things, trying to optimise a few things here and there. It was just a lot more difficult than we expected it to be for whatever reason.

“But everyone just stuck together, they kept on thinking about what we could do, also back at the factory, and we got there in the end. So I think that is definitely just a great feeling when you you’re experiencing a really difficult weekend to then still get it right in qualifying.

“Of course I hope that it doesn’t happen too often but at the moment I’m just very pleased that we managed to turn it around.”

Red Bull introduced several new parts for its car this weekend, but Verstappen doesn’t believe that complicated the task of getting its set-up right.

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“I think the upgrades are the upgrades, and I think they do the job, but we had other issues than just the upgrades of the car. Of course, we have a lot of people looking at that, but at the same time, we also have a lot of people working on the balance issues that we had throughout the weekend.

“All the time when you bring new parts to the car, it’s not that you learn everything in a weekend. It takes time, race after race, every track. Also, you need a bit of a different set-up, so it requires different things from the car.”

Although Red Bull’s RB20 looks outwardly different to its predecessor in several ways, it is an evolution of the team’s highly successful 2023 design. Verstappen said it is “easier compared to last year” to set up, but the team found themselves further away from the ideal than usual at Imola.

“I think the struggles that I had maybe in some previous races were not as big as what we had here. [Then] it was more about fine-tuning a few little things, now we were just completely out of the window, from my feeling, to really push.

“So it just required a bit more attention to detail to try and fine-tune that. But I still think it’s a very strong car that I feel comfortable with. Just somehow this weekend it has been very difficult to set it up.

“But hopefully we learned a lot from it when we get to the next race. It’s always a tricky one, Monaco, to get everything out of the car because so many things can happen. But hopefully it’s a bit more consistent, let’s say it like that.”

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