“Everything went wrong basically”- Max Verstappen reveals that his first poor finish this season was not under his control.
Max Verstappen for the first time this season ended a race without finishing in the top-3. Though, initially, it was expected that he might end up first with the level of the advantage he had.
However, the Dutch driver was seen being ‘impatient’ while contesting against Sergio Perez, which eventually made Verstappen lose control of his car and fall down in the ranks.
From there Verstappen couldn’t recover and ended up 6th in the table. A disappointing end for Red bull, which had all the odds in favour on Sunday, but Verstappen feels that his defeat in Istanbul was not in his control and was rather a technical fault.
“I didn’t even want to overtake him there,” he said in an interview with de Telegraaf. “It’s not that I was too impatient or anything like that. There was nothing I could do at that spot.
“I just wanted to hook up behind him, but suddenly I understeered off the track. Then it was more or less finished. After that I was stuck in a little train for most of the time.”
Verstappen also revealed in the interview that his RB16 had totally the wrong set-up for the race, including his front wing being “seven degrees” out of position.
“Everything went wrong basically,” he said. “It turned out that the adjustment of my front wing was completely wrong. On one side we were seven degrees short of what should have been our front wing set-up. That is quite a lot really.
“Normally you adjust one degree here or there or something like that. But seven degrees, that is a lot. So what can you do as a driver? Almost nothing works as a result of that.”
Abysmal track conditions- Verstappen
Apart from the displeasure stemming out from the result, Verstappen was also bitter about the track conditions and said it was abysmal, though a general mandate was also there against the track.
“The state of the asphalt was ridiculous as well,” he said. “And with this front wing set-up, there is not much you can do as a driver.”