Frustrated Max Verstappen talks about ‘bad day’ and is disappointed in Lewis Hamilton
After setting the fifth fastest time in his first practice session at Imola for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, Max Verstappen was unable to beat the seventh fastest time in the second practice session. Charles Leclerc was fastest again.
Verstappen said at the start of Friday’s second session that his own RB20 was already feeling much better than in his first practice session. Despite this, he “only” set the seventh fastest time.
The last two attempts to record a fast time on soft tires failed. Verstappen was already affected by traffic on his first attempt, when Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton got in his way. Verstappen was clearly not happy about this, and made it clear with words and gestures. Hamilton quickly apologised, telling his engineer over the in-car radio that he wanted a warning that Verstappen was coming towards him.
After a similar incident, Leclerc and Verstappen’s teammate Pérez also got into an altercation late in training. Verstappen: “It’s happened again” “This isn’t the first time this has happened,” Verstappen said of Hamilton at the time. “You always try to stay calm, but it happened again. At the same time, I don’t want to talk about it too much because it’s not an issue today. We didn’t have the speed, so it happened.
It was difficult to find the right balance, I didn’t feel comfortable in the car, and it was very easy to “lose” the car. Today was just bad. There are really a lot of things we need to improve to be competitive tomorrow. ” Ferrari’s Leclerc did a lap of 1.15.906, nearly two tenths of a second faster than Oscar Piastri (McLaren). Amazingly, only Yuki Tsunoda, Hamilton, George Russell, Carlos Sainz and Perez were behind them.
Verstappen was half a second slower than Leclerc on this fastest lap, but Perez added another tenth of a second. The race simulation also didn’t go entirely to Max Verstappen’s plan, but in the final stages all the drivers focused on long runs for Sunday’s race. The race simulation also didn’t go entirely to Verstappen’s plan, but Verstappen again shot straight for the win.
However, during these long runs, nearly all drivers’ lap times fluctuated back and forth. “The long run was also very bad,” Verstappen declared. “Do we believe that tomorrow will be better? It’s almost never going to be worse than today. Others seem to have taken a step forward, but it wasn’t a good day for us.”
Verstappen was also looking for an opening training session in Imola. Verstappen was also unhappy in his first free practice session of the day. He voiced his dissatisfaction over the radio in his car. The three-time world champion couldn’t get past fifth place at the start. All teams except Racing Bulls brought some updates to Imola, which were thoroughly tested in the first session of the weekend.
Verstappen set the fastest times in sectors 1 and 3, but lost a lot of time in the middle section. In the end, Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) achieved the fastest time for the Italian spectators: 1:16.990. Sergio Perez and Verstappen were more than two tenths slower than Leclerc.
Mercedes driver George Russell cut Leclerc’s time by a tenth at the start of the afternoon, followed closely by teammate Carlos Sainz. Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and Verstappen were more than two tenths slower than Leclerc. With about six minutes remaining, Verstappen moved forward but took a shot straight in front.
It happened again at the last minute, but with no serious consequences. As a result, he was unable to run an ideal lap at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari. Red Bull, like Ferrari and Mercedes, have also introduced major updates to Imola. McLaren did it two weeks ago in Miami. Lando Norris, who won there, recorded the eighth fastest time in his first training session.
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