Max Verstappen has said that Red Bull has made a mistake by not developing a 2024 low-drag rear wing better suited to high-speed circuits like Las Vegas and Monza.
Verstappen struggled for pace in Thursday evening's practice sessions and was P17 at the end of FP2. He was better on Friday and he was fifth in FP3 which is also where he will start on the grid tomorrow.
Red Bull had been lacking straight-line speed compared to its rivals and was around 7km/h down on the straights compared to Mercedes and McLaren. The team made changes to reduce drug before FP3.
Verstappen made it clear that he put the blame for the problems on the lack of a specialised rear wing. “We opted to not make one, so we don't have one," he said after qualifying on Friday evening.
"This is already from 2022," he continued. "I think we just never thought we would run it that low, and then with the budget cap you choose your priorities and we shifted that.
“We would have liked to have a lower wing, a lower-downforce wing, or at least a different shape, a more efficient shape," he said. “It's something I will look at.
"Oon the other hand, there's only one more year left with these rules, and I don't know if it makes sense,m" he conceded. “But for me at least, it feels a bit like we throw away two race weekends like this.
"You definitely lose too much on the straights," he insisted. Verstappen's worst result of the season came at Monza where he qualified in seventh and finished one spot higher in P6.
"We know that with our wing naturally you lose top speed, especially with the DRS open. It's a bit of a handicap," he said, highlighting the RB20's performance in the corners and on the straights.
“We knew that and that's something that we have to deal with on a track like this track, like Monza. But besides that I always felt like the tyres were a bit of a struggle for us to get them in the right operating window.
“I do think that we did the best we could in qualifying with what we had, and then P5 is the result," he said, admitting that "we got a bit lucky" with Lewis Hamilton hitting problems in Q3 and finishing in tenth.
"I think we really maximised what we could, now on the cusp of wrapping up a fourth consecutive world championship by ensuring he starts ahead of title rival Lando Norris on tomorrow's grid.
"We did our best and maximised everything that we could. The tyres are our main issue as we were struggling quite a lot with the grip throughout the day," he reported after the end of qualifying.
"Our long runs have not been that great and we were too slow on the straight. However,I think we did execute everything really well in qualifying, and worked well as a team.
"Ultimately I'm happy with how it went," he said. "I left everything out there and we ended up in P5. Everything looks a lot better than yesterday.
"Hopefully with the things that we changed on the car, we are a bit more competitive tomorrow in the race. Let’s hope that the changes will make an impact and we can put together a good performance."
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