Max Verstappen: “The gap is big”

Sole survivor of Red Bull Racing in Australia, after the abandonment and the “black” weekend for Daniel Ricciardo, Max Verstappen had only been able to bring fifth place to the Milton Keynes team in Melbourne, the RB13 being beaten by the Ferrari SF70H and the Mercedes W08.

If the progress on the engine side is real, but should be even better when Renault will have reinstalled his 2017 MGU-K in his Power Unit, the Dutchman confesses that his rivals have taken a first lead this season.

“I don’t know how long it’s going to take to get back to the level, commented Verstappen at a press conference in China this Thursday. The gap is big, but I'm quite confident that we can definitely reduce it in the next races within the same second, and then we'll see when we get the big upgrades on the engine side as well. »

A balance to refine

Furthermore, when asked about the current weaknesses of his car 2017, Max Verstappen admitted that several details were currently slowing Red Bull in its quest for first places.

“Do you have an hour to spare?” proclaimed the Dutchman when answering the question. No, I think we can...we can just improve the overall balance. I mean, I think in qualifying everything went well, but we need more support. A little more grip, and we need more power.

And it's a bit of both. You're trying to make a car efficient on the straights to make up for the loss of power elsewhere. Now we just need to focus on, firstly, getting the car into the right operating window and then hopefully we will have the best improvements on the engine side. »