Max Verstappen brought the first week of pre-season testing for Red Bull to close in a stop-start session that was again affected by the conditions at the Circuit de Catalunya and by niggling technical issues. First Max focused on short runs and aero testing. Later he conducted more aero work before a mechanical issue affected running. A late spin for Max then saw his day end prematurely.
“We didn’t do any performance laps, but when you have conditions such as this, which are not ideal, then it’s best to just focus on making sure everything is working in the way you want and that the data you’re getting correlates to what is happening in the wind tunnel and that’s what we did,” said Max. “We had a couple of little hiccups and then I had a little moment where I went into the gravel, tried to the reverse but it got stuck. However, I’m quite happy with the car so far, and maybe the second week will show a bit more how we compare against our rivals. I certainly hope it’s a bit sunnier next week.”
Max Verstappen brought the first week of pre-season testing for Red Bull to close in a stop-start session
Today we didn’t do the number of laps we planned. Still I feel positive about the #RB14, the handling feels fine. Better weather next week would be welcome! #F1Testing pic.twitter.com/Nk0SnqveWW
— Max Verstappen (@Max33Verstappen) March 1, 2018
Head of Race Engineering Guillaume Rocquelin added: “Not an ideal end to what has been a pretty tricky week. We had a reliability issue and Max had a spin, which led to us calling a halt. But the issues we had are easy fixes. And in general we’re pretty happy with how the car runs, so now it’s about building on what we have. The real difficulty this week was in not being able to maximise the time available. That was a bit frustrating. However, we are reasonably happy with what the RB14 delivered in its first outing. We now have a bit of time back at base to work on next week’s test, when hopefully the weather conditions will be a bit kinder.”
