Verstappen says Pirelli 'have to look at themselves'

Max Verstappen says Pirelli cannot blame Red Bull or Aston Martin for the tyre failures suffered by the two teams in Baku, insisting the Italian manufacturer has to look at itself after offering "vague" conclusions to its investigation into the incidents.

Pirelli's investigation into the blowouts in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix suffered by Verstappen and Lance Stroll concluded that its product had not failed due to a production or quality defect and suggested that "the running conditions" of the tyres were to blame.

Both Red Bull and Aston Martin issued a statement claiming that they had run their tyres according to the prescribed pressure and temperature parameters mandated by Pirelli.

As the focus switches to the teams and to suspicions that Red Bull and Aston Martin had somehow found a way to run their tyres at a lower pressure threshold, Verstappen – who was sitting in Thursday's media conference alongside Lewis Hamilton who said that Pirelli was "not at fault" – defended his team's integrity.

"Of course, they explained that they don’t have measurement tools during the race, but we gave them our tyre pressures and they were within the limits they set," explained the Dutchman.

"If those limits are not correct, there is nothing we can do about it, we just follow what is possible within the rules.

"If that means that we have to go up on pressures, we will – everyone will go up on pressures.

"But they say they didn’t have the correct measurements, but we gave it to them after the race and it was shown that we didn’t do anything wrong there. And also, Aston Martin didn’t do anything wrong.

"So, they cannot put the blame on us. I think they have to look at themselves. And we are here, happy to help of course with everything.

"They already went up on pressure from Friday [in Baku] to Saturday, so that means something.

"Maybe it wasn’t enough. We’ll go up on pressures here, for sure, and hopefully that’s enough."

• Read also - Hamilton: Pirelli 'not at fault' for Baku blowouts

Verstappen said that Pirelli's official explanations earlier this week, which to be fair did leave everyone with more questions than answers, were at best "vague".

"For me it was just a bit vague what came out," he said. "But the only thing I can say is that from our side, I think the team did everything like they should have done.

"They followed all the guidelines with tyre pressures and stuff. So, there was nothing to be found there.

"For sure we’ll go up on pressures here for this weekend. I’m 100% sure we will.

"Probably it has something to do with that, what happened in Baku, but it would also be nice to just know if it was tyre pressure related.

"[Pirelli should] just speak out – it would be a bit easier to understand and I think the explanation we got so far [wasn’t enough] because the team didn’t do anything wrong."

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