Verstappen minimizes his grid penalty in Sochi

With his slightly swaggering demeanor and his mischievous eye, you never know if he's joking. As his traditional Thursday media session opened in the Sochi paddock and the first question related to on his grid penalty, Max Verstappen cut it short. “That means we will be 6th on the grid”. Laughter heard in the assembly. And the pilot Red Bull to add a small layer. “It wasn’t a joke”. All with a big smile.

Like all his Honda-powered comrades, Verstappen will take a new copy of the specification 4 of the Japanese internal combustion engine (ICE) to Sochi. No need to read the cards to understand that the Sakura brand wants to do everything to approach its home meeting in Suzuka in the best possible conditions.

In the meantime, there is a Grand Prix to compete in Russia and Verstappen does not intend to make up the numbers there. “Last year, we started from the back of the grid and overtaking was not a problem., rewound the Batavian. Even if the mid-grid teams look more competitive this season. We will lose a little time on the leaders but it will not be the end of the world. Without penalty, and realistically, we would have qualified around 4th or 5th place so it won't change much. So we said to ourselves why not get a new engine? We only move back 5 places.”

Red Bull arrives in Russia after a Singapore GP which promised a lot on paper for the Milton Keynes team but ultimately ended with a mixed result, at least in terms of intrinsic performance.

Helmut Marko told Austrian TV that the team had gone astray with the parameters and other settings used in the in-house simulator to prepare for the races.

“We tried something different compared to previous years and it didn’t work as planned, admitted Verstappen. We could have done better in the simulator but it helped us so much that I'm not going to start blaming this tool for our lack of performance over a race weekend. It’s just a shame that it fell in Singapore.”