A difficult start
Coming off a memorable victory on this very track 12 months ago by Max Verstappen, Red Bull had high hopes for the Interlagos weekend, aiming to regain important points in the drivers’ championship against the McLaren duo of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. Instead, the first taste of the Brazilian weekend, with the Sprint Qualifying, went in the opposite direction: Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri claimed first and second positions on the grid, while Max Verstappen could only manage third in his group, ultimately recording just the sixth overall time in SQ3, also behind Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin.
Verstappen’s frustration
Max Verstappen was quite explicit both over the radio and in post-session interviews regarding the RB21. The reigning world champion described his car as “uncontrollable” and “terrible” in the middle sector of the Paulistan track. Even the heavy rain forecast for both the Sprint and the main qualifying session does not seem to give confidence to the Dutch superstar.
Pierre Waché admits the problems
At the end of the day, technical director Pierre Waché confirmed the problematic situation that the Milton Keynes team is facing in Brazil: “It was a difficult day,” the French engineer emphasized. “To be honest, the Sprint format always poses challenges over the weekend. The car is not behaving as we expected here, especially on the soft tires. With that compound, it seems there is something wrong and the car is not performing at its best. We are examining many aspects to understand if we need to change anything.”
“We are investigating what the issue is: it concerns both cars,” Pierre Waché added. “We aim to improve the cars’ performance for the rest of the weekend. All of this is still a valuable lesson in preparation for the Sprint, qualifying, and the race. Finally, I want to congratulate the team in the garage, who did an excellent job repairing Yuki’s car so quickly after his FP1 incident, giving him the opportunity to return to the track.”
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