Max Verstappen believes he’s facing a rough challenge at the Interlagos circuit, where resurfacing meant to improve track conditions has instead made matters worse for Red Bull.
The championship leader struggled with stability during Friday’s Sprint qualifying, which left him just fourth in the pecking order at the end of the session, trailing the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
Verstappen, who was three tenths of a second off the pace relative to Piastri, feels the recent changes made to the track’s surface have made the circuit even more bumpy than in the past, exacerbating his RB20 car's inherent weaknesses.
“As soon as we went into qualifying, it looked like we were definitely off,” Verstappen told F1TV.
“The car is a bit difficult in the bumps. They did the resurfacing, but I think they actually made it worse to drive. It’s extremely bumpy everywhere, so it’s not good for our cars.
“All the bumpy areas, the car is jumping around a lot and it’s costing me quite a bit of lap time, unfortunately.”
The Red Bull ace, already at a disadvantage due to a separate grid penalty for Sunday’s main event, was unsure if his car’s handling would improve for Saturday’s Sprint.
“I don’t know”, he said. “Normally when you’re already quite a bit off over one lap, I don’t think we are particularly the strongest in the race.
“So we’ll have to see how that goes tomorrow in the sprint. And then, yeah, for the penalty, yeah, I have a bit more work to do [on Sunday].”
©RedBull
Meanwhile, Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez endured a rather dismal sprint qualifying session of his own. The Mexican driver finished 13th after failing to complete a final run in SQ2, which left him without the chance to attempt a last-minute improvement.
Perez said he had been struggling with balance throughout the session and was forced to make adjustments on the fly.
“We had a good SQ1 but then into SQ2 we were struggling a little bit with the balance,” he explained.
“We had a little bit of understeer with the track coming down. And we tried to do it basically with the brake balance and tools that I had available. I ended up a little bit too rear-limited.”
Perez also highlighted confusion within the team about the timing of his final run, which cost him a shot at a final lap.
“Then it was a bit confusing on the programme,” he said. “We thought we might have a chance for a second lap and unfortunately we didn’t.”
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