Verstappen critical of 'over the top' 2023 floor changes

Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen isn't happy with the latest rules and regulations changes affecting the floor of the next year's cars.

The FIA is making the modifications in response to the problem of 'porpoising' affecting several teams on the grid, with Mercedes particularly badly affected which has raised concerns about driver health and safety.

But Red Bull have experienced little in the way of similar concerns, and see no need for the governing body to step in and mandate major changes for next year.

• Read also: Floor changes to eradicate porpoising confirmed by FIA

“I think it's gone a little bit over the top with these changes," said the reigning champion, who is currently 80 points in the lead in this year's drivers championship.

""Already the last few races you can see that most of the teams had it more or less under control, and also the teams who actually asked for it had it much more under control.”

Verstappen shared the podiums in France and Hungary with the two Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, which he took as proof of his point that the Silver Arrows no longer needed any help overcoming recent issues.

Team rejected the initial proposal to raise the floor of next year's car by 25mm. Many teams pushed for 10mm, and in the end a compromise of 15mm had been settled upon.

The new floors could force teams to make some major changes to next year's car, at a time when squads are already struggling to stay within the new annual budget cap.

“It will be interesting to see," Verstappen said when asked what he felt the impact of the changes would be in practice. "At the moment I don't think it's very clear how much it's going to hurt different kinds of teams.

"I don't think it's going to necessarily hurt us," he added when asked about what it meant for Red Bull.

Currently the RB18 is head-and-shoulders the best car on the grid, with the team enjoying a 97 point lead in the constructors championship over Ferrari who in turn have 30 points in hand over Mercedes.

But despite such a huge advantage going into the final nine races of the current season, Verstappen isn't getting carried away with the prospect of winning his second title.

"It would be wrong to relax,” he warned. “So many things can still go wrong, or can go right.

"Our intention is that we want to win more races and that's how we approach also the remaining races," he continued. "We always want the best, we want to win. We don't want to give wins to other teams just for being safe.

"We want to win more races. We're not here to say, ‘Oh we can only finish second’ like that's okay. We don't work like that.

"Of course we know we also had to finish the races first of all without any issues, but there's still nine races to go and we are targeting to win nine races.”

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