Verstappen urges Red Bull to find more pace after close win in Canada

2022 Canadian Grand Prix

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Max Verstappen says Red Bull need to find more pace from their car after narrowly resisting the threat from Ferrari in the Canadian Grand Prix.

Red Bull prevailed in a close fight with their closest rivals at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve after Verstappen withstood pressure from Carlos Sainz Jnr over the final laps.

“It was a tough race,” said Verstappen after his victory on Sunday. “I expected to have a little bit more pace but we seemed to lack a little bit compared to Carlos.”

“That’s of course the only one I could compare to, with the Ferrari, and it was a bit more difficult than I expected.”

Verstappen started from pole position, for only the second time this year, following a rain-affected qualifying session.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari’s leading driver in the points standings, suffered a compromised race after starting 19th due to penalties for exceeding his allocation of power unit components. He has now fallen 49 points behind Verstappen in the championship.

Verstappen’s closest rival is his team mate Sergio Perez, who is 46 points adrift. However Verstappen believes Ferrari have the pace to catch them over the remaining 13 races.

“It’s still a very long way and I know the gap of course is quite big, but I also know that it can switch around very quickly,” he said. “I mean, at race three I was 46 behind.

“So we just need to stay calm, we need to focus, we need to improve, because today we were not the quickest.

“It swings a bit, like last weekend it looked good in the race, now it didn’t look as good. But we still managed to win and that I think is also a quality.

“We just have to work together with the whole team to try and just find little improvements in the car.”

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2022 Canadian Grand Prix

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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37 comments on “Verstappen urges Red Bull to find more pace after close win in Canada”

  1. Maybe Max doesn’t realise that Carlos was on fresher tyres, hence the performance of the Ferrari looked better. Red Bull is easily the fastest raceday car in the paddock.. if anything, he should push Red Bull to improve quali performance.. so he can start every race on pole, lead every lap, take the fastest lap and lap the entire field twice.

    1. If I recall correctly, the tire difference was 6-7 laps, for the hard rubber this difference is nothing I believe. This time Ferrari really was match for the Bulls in race pace, but I would not say faster. Yet.

    2. during FP, the Long runs ferrari beat RBR.
      So, Ferrari still was the faster car in quali and race in Canada.

      1. We are seeing a lot of people trying to push the narrative that the RedBull is far superior than the Ferrari. I’d take a wild guess and say most of these people are Mercedes fans, unwilling to acknowledge what Max is doing with equal machinery for the second year running. Or maybe it will somehow justify the Merc title winning years where they actually had enough advantage to turn the engines down and still coast to victory?

        1. Or perhaps the Red Bull is yet again the best car and the false narrative is the Verstappen fans. Works both ways.

          1. @slowmo Lol ‘yet again’ and here you are talking about narratives.

          2. A second year running would be yet again. Plus we’ll not mention the 4 years 2010-2013. The statement is factually accurate even if it doesn’t fit your agenda.

          3. @slowmo Last year Mercedes won the WCC. As well, by the last four races the majority within and without F1 were calling Mercedes the better car. Who knew though that you were sneaking in 2010-2013 to fit your agenda.

          4. Of course the relative performances of Bottas in his 5th year with Mercedes and Perez in his first year at Red Bull could have no bearing on the WCC could it. My statement was a fact, not my fault you don’t like it.

          5. petebaldwin (@)
            23rd June 2022, 15:20

            It would be and if it was true, it would be stating facts rather than pushing a narrative. The Mercedes and Red Bull were very evenly matched last year. There were times the Mercedes was clearly the faster car and other times where it was the Red Bull.

            As for this year, again I don’t think it’s clear that the Red Bull is the best car. The Ferrari is extremely fast but struggles with reliability. I guess you could say the Red Bull is better because it doesn’t break down as much…

            As for the opening comment – I think the reason the Ferrari dominates in quali but the Red Bull seems better in the race is down to set up choices. Verstappen seems to be happy to qualify 2nd providing that gives him a better race car. For the first time in ages, they’ve gone for a car that is quick in a straight line which means they can overtake so they’re setting their car up to exploit their strengths even if that means losing out in quali.

      2. @seth-space where were you getting your free practice reports from them? The general consensus from that was that Red Bull and Ferrari had been fairly evenly matched during their race simulation stints.

        Verstappen was a bit faster at the start of the stint, whilst Sainz was then a bit faster towards the end of the stint, but the overall trends were fairly similar for both (Leclerc’s stint was disrupted by traffic and was thus not really representative – as for Perez, his times were fractionally slower, but not that much slower).

        There is also the problem that, if we went with your hypothesis about the race simulation runs from the practice sessions, Alonso should have dominated the race, Vettel and Gasly should have been in the top 6, the two Alfa’s should have been nowhere near the points and similarly the two Mercedes drivers should have also been outside of the top 10 – in other words, most of the drivers in the top 10 finished in positions that they shouldn’t have if we rigidly stuck to what the free practice race simulations stated.

        1. Race simulation is exact that.. a simulated situation to show the true speed of the car with enough fuel and long runs on the tires.
          While this is only an indication its one of the best parameters to know what the car can do.
          Ferrari was about 0,1 or 0,2 s faster during these runs.
          Alonso btw not.. and while Vet did great his race pace was not on par with his single lap speed.
          Even Sainz himself and Binotto agreed they had the faster car. Lec used the smaller wing with higher topspeed but was unable to profit form it. So we know Lec was even faster but not in the position to fight a Redbull.

    3. @todfod
      Canada is theoretically a RBR track and Carlos while improving isn’t the benchmark to measure how much performance is still in that Ferrari. Besides as mentioned by @vasschu the tyre difference was ~6 laps. Max has a point though, Carlos was able to pressure him despite the fact that he drove brilliantly without making the slightest mistake on a track that is theoretically suited to RBR. Ferrari was the faster race car since Barcelona. Even in Baku where we don’t know how the race could have ended, Leclerc was able to defend from Max in the first stint.

      RBR and Verstappen are the better team and the complete package (driver, mechanics, strategy, pitstops…). Though regarding the absolute value of the cars, Ferrari has the best all around car. It is very well balanced as seen in tracks like Barcelona and rides the curves like no other car. It lagged compared to RBR only on the straights at the beginning of the season but that wasn’t the case anymore since the introduction of the new low downforce aero package in Baku.

      Helmut Marko said that the area RBR are currently struggling with regard to Ferrari is weight. It has emerged that Ferrari were half a kilo above the minimum weight in a recent race. RBR have started the season with their car ~ 8 kg above minimum weight.

      Silverstone in theory should be a walk in the park for Ferrari even though RBR are expected to bring a significant aero package. I said in theory because of the ability of Ferrari race operations (strategy, pitstops…) to invent new ways of losing races, not to mention reliability.

      1. @tifoso1989

        Can’t agree when you say Ferrari is the overall better car. It’s faster in quali.. Because they go for an higher downforce config. Generally, red bull has had better race day pace, is easier on its tyres, porpoises lesser and is more reliable. Barcelona is the only track where Ferrari looked comfortably better in quali and race day. Baku it looked like red bull were actually stronger on sat and sun, but didn’t capitalise on Saturday. Canada they looked much quicker in the wet and quicker on the mediums as well. If you negate the last stint where Carlos had (9 laps) fresher tyres, they’ve pretty much been quicker than Ferrari everywhere.

        1. and is more reliable.

          not really, you seem to have missed some events…

          1. @seth-space
            They haven’t resorted to a 4th power unit yet… so.. they are marginally more reliable than Ferrari.

        2. petebaldwin (@)
          23rd June 2022, 15:27

          @todfod – Sure but Barcelona shares characteristics with a lot more of the remaining tracks. We’ve just come off a run of 3 street circuits where we know the Red Bull is better – it doesn’t porpoise and doesn’t have to be run extremely low and stiff.

          I’d say for the first few races, the Red Bull and Ferrari were very close on pace, the street circuits went Red Bull’s way but now we head to Silverstone, Austria, Paul Ricard, Hungary, Spa, Zandvoort…. I think it’s going to be extremely close between Max and Charles.

        3. @todfod
          The difference in set up choices were no longer relevant after Baku where Ferrari have introduced a new low downforce package. Ferrari didn’t update the F1-75 in the first seven races and were more than a match to RBR who were developing the RB18 at a faster rate. Barcelona is normally the benchmark track to measure the aerodynamic balance of an F1 car and Ferrari were mighty quick there so it’s normal to expect them to be quick in high downforce tracks.

          Ferrari only lagged compared to RBR on the straights and in the tyre management department. That is no longer the case after the upgrades introduced in both Barcelona and Baku. Ferrari was quicker than RBR in both qualy and race in Bahrein, Australia, Barcelona and Monaco.

          RBR was quicker than Ferrari in both qualifying and race only in Imola. In Miami RBR have had the advantage during the race due its superior tyre management. Despite the fact that Saudi Arabia, Baku and Canada were tracks suited better to the RB18, Ferrari was in contention for the win in all those tracks. If you look at the remaining races, the only track where RBR might be untouchable is Monza while there will be lots of tracks where Ferrari will be flying.

          1. @tifoso1989

            You are actually probably spot on, but this is still an extremely polarized community at the moment to offer any sort of insight.

            Did you notice race commentators in Canada still talking about the legendary RB straight-line speed? (2kph if that even lol)

            Have you ever seen even the smallest discussion about lewis being in the wrong mode (harvesting energy) during the safety car restart in Abu Dhabi? (flashing lights on the turn where he got overtaken.)

            There you go. In short, we only love/hate Lewis or Max. No common sense or data dive is required.

          2. @cobray

            Did you notice race commentators in Canada still talking about the legendary RB straight-line speed?

            I didn’t notice that. Normally I prefer watching the races switching between the French Canal+, the Italian Sky Sports, and DAZN Spain (Movistar in the past) because of the insightful commentaries of Jacques Villeneuve, Marc Gene and Pedro DeLaRosa respectively.

            I personally think that you can’t have a journalist explaining F1 better than Giorgio Piola. In every race weekend and between sessions, motorsport Italia do have a podcast where Piola giving insightful analysis backed with data. The only problem is that the podcast itself is in Italian.

            Have you ever seen even the smallest discussion about lewis being in the wrong mode (harvesting energy) during the safety car restart in Abu Dhabi? (flashing lights on the turn where he got overtaken.)

            That’s very interesting. Have you got any source or link about that. I’ve noticed the lights but I thought always it was a normal recharge under braking. If the championship battle between Lewis and Max has extended to this season with this polarized environment. I wouldn’t have any doubt that it will be physical between fans and maybe even between the teams.

          3. @tifoso1989

            It’s on the rulebook. Sporting regulations.

            Lights are fully illuminated when fitted with intermediate and full wets and have to flicker to indicate the battery charging (MGU-K).

            It used to be also when using low engine modes to indicate fuel-saving I believe but that’s not the case anymore with one engine mode per weekend.

          4. @cobray
            Thanks for your reply !

        4. Barcelona is the only track where Ferrari looked comfortably better in quali and race day.

          So did I imagine that Melbourne weekend where Leclerc dominated both days? You can also add Bahrain to that list. As for Montreal, take a look at Sainz’s vs. Verstappen’s lap times between Lap 4 and Lap 10 (VSC). Sainz closed from a gap of 3.1 seconds to 2.6 seconds in 6 laps. I can only imagine Leclerc would have taken a bigger chunk out of Verstappen’s lead given how this season has panned out.

          1. Cobray, interesting insight about hamilton at abu dhabi, wasn’t aware. On topic I find the cars pretty even this year so far, also reliability wise.

          2. @robbie the car is rapid a driver with awful 1 lap pace is getting pole and troubling max some quallys you know its quick.

  2. It’s not really that much urging is it? “We seemed to lack a little pace” and “we need to improve, because today we were not the quickest” is something you hear from every driver after every race.

  3. Breaking news. F1 driver asking for a faster car.

  4. Adding up what everyone is saying I think the RBR vs Ferrari debate is too close to call and depends on the track and the circumstances. It seems Ferrari (CL) is faster on Saturdays and RBR (Max and sometimes Checo) are faster during the race, but I think that without any curveballs thrown during the race, with a fairly straightforward race, it can come down to a very close battle between Max and Charles as we have seen when they’ve both been able to have unencumbered races at the same time.

  5. Max Verstappen says Red Bull need to find more pace from their car after narrowly resisting the threat from Ferrari in the Canadian Grand Prix.

    , Of course he does they all do, Redbull obviously has the faster car at the moment. I don’t think the other teams will be catching them at any time soon. I think he had more speed left in the car than he is saying.

    1. Redbull obviously has the faster car at the moment.

      obviously for you perhaps.. Binotto, Sainz e.a are convinced they have the faster car.
      The performance figures support that view.. in Canada in Quali and in racepace they were the faster car.

      1. Binotto has to say he has a better car.. after years of making a slow and uncompetitive cars, and scrapping a season to focus on the next, he can’t say he made the 2nd fastest car on the grid (with horrible reliability).

  6. Is it Max or is it the car? It must be Max because the RB is useless and Newey is a terrible engineer.

    1. @greenflag lol, ok. You’ll find some fun once your favourite driver LH will return in fight for the win.

  7. Didnt they show the graphic where Ferrari was the fastest car at the start of FP1 and Red Bull infact had lost ground to Ferrari. So why is still there confusion amongst some.

  8. Ferrari, the fastest car. Red Bull Racing, the best team.

    1. +1 RedBulls biggest achilles heel was engines in the 2014-21 era. With Honda on board in 2019 they slowly bought the engine to competitive level and 2021 was the year when it became almost equal footing with regards to engine.

      Now we have all engines at almost equal level in power except for marginal differences not as huge as before, the real battle with aero begins.

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