Verstappen 'pays the price' as Dutchman identifies Baku issues
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Max Verstappen was not completely satisfied with finishing fifth in Baku. That is not because the RB20 is still a 'monster'—the word he called his car back in Monza—but because he went down the wrong path in terms of the setup at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Verstappen: 'We paid the price for that'
"I think we just paid the price with the changes that we made into qualifying. That made it just really difficult to drive. The car was jumping around a lot, the wheels were coming off the ground in the low-speed corners. When you don't have a contact patch with the tarmac, it's very difficult," Verstappen summed up his problems, to media including GPblog.
Verstappen was not surprised that his car felt pretty good up to qualifying, but then was less satisfied with the changes made to his RB20 afterwards. "You try to make changes always to make the car better, but unfortunately, what we did made it worse," he explained.
On the other hand, Sergio Perez was in fine form in Baku, a track the Mexican usually prefers. Perez was on his way to finish on the podium, but then he collided with Carlos Sainz on the penultimate lap. "It's of course never nice to see that. It didn't help, of course, what happened there with Checo and Carlos. I'm sure that we can do better. The fight is not over yet. We'll try to get that back," concluded the Dutchman about where things stand in the constructors' standings following the Grand Prix in Baku, as Red Bull Racing now trail McLaren by exactly 20 points.
This article was written in collaboration with Nicole Mulder
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