No time to dwell too much at Red Bull after the disastrous weekend in Sakhir, as it’s already time to return to the track for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The race in Jeddah is notoriously “wild,” with extremely high speeds and tight walls. Accidents, Safety Cars, and red flags are rarely absent and can completely shake up the outcome of the race and flip the competitive order. Introducing the Saudi weekend, Max Verstappen – who has never finished lower than 2nd at this track in four appearances – expressed some timid hopes of improvement compared to what was seen in Bahrain.
A track that suits Max Verstappen
“That was a rather difficult weekend for us and it didn’t go well at all. We had some problems that pushed us back and there’s still a lot of work to do on the car to get where we need to be. However, last year Jeddah was a good track for us, and it’s a high-speed semi-street circuit that’s fun to drive. Generally, tyre degradation is lower on this circuit, so the race should be better for us. Hopefully we can find a better rhythm and achieve a performance similar to what we saw in Japan,” said Max Verstappen.
Yuki Tsunoda chasing more points
Different expectations, of course, for Yuki Tsunoda: for the Japanese driver, simply repeating the points finish (9th place) achieved last Sunday would already be a strong sign of consistency. “I’m still getting to grips with the car, but we managed to overcome some difficult moments to bounce back well and extract good pace from the car,” explained Yuki Tsunoda. “Obviously I want to do better and will demand more from myself in the coming weeks as I continue to settle into the team. My goal for Jeddah is to have a good qualifying result. It’s another very different circuit and presents challenges with tight walls and a tricky surface. We’ll try to bring the car into a good window and I’ll do my best to achieve a strong result for the team.” – the Japanese driver concluded ahead of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend.
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