The standings clearly do not tell the whole story of Max Verstappen’s day, as the Dutchman closed the second free practice session in only fourteenth place, a full 8 and a half tenths behind Lewis Hamilton, who was able to precede Lando Norris by just three thousandths. Everyone had the chance to complete at least one lap on the soft tyre, including Verstappen, but the three-time world champion, in reality, did not complete his passage on the softer compound, thanks to a slip-up at the last corner, the Parabolica.
In fact, the Red Bull driver lost the rear of the car right at the entrance of what, even in the past years, has been one of his most competitive sections, being able to carry a lot of speed when entering and then maintaining it also in the middle of the curve and on the exit. However, in FP2 this error caught him off guard, as he immediately decided to abort the lap to let the tyres breathe, which did not allow him to record a competitive time.
The aim was to make another attempt at a later date, but the red flag resulting from Kevin Magnussen’s accident at the second Lesmo corner forced everyone to take a long stop, prompting the teams to focus directly on long-distance work with more fuel on board. In fact, Verstappen did not complete a fast lap on the soft, so his time on the medium left him only in fourteenth place. Beyond this, there is also the fact that Red Bull, as often happens, is very conservative on the engine mappings on Fridays.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
The day was also useful to continue the experiments to find a good balance, so much so that, as in Zandvoort, also here in Monza Verstappen continued with the bottom of the beginning of the season, but modified with some recent components for those parts that Red Bull is sure of the functioning, such as the external part of the pavement. “We tried different setups, in the end the free practices are useful for this, also some things that we want to learn more about the car”, said the three-time world champion in the interviews at the end of the day.
“FP2 probably didn’t go the best at the beginning, probably the long run was more competitive. We are aggressive on the tyres at the moment, so we have to see how the situation evolves in view of the race”, continued the Dutchman, underlining however how at the moment he feels that the tyres drop too much over the long run. In fact, at the end of his long run Verstappen himself had reported on the radio a sudden and marked drop in grip. This is also due to the graining that several teams have encountered on the new asphalt in Brianza.
Clearly the aim is to find a more effective setup, an aspect that has forced Red Bull to do extra work at night several times during the season. The team already has a couple of ideas in mind on how to modify the set-up, but it will take a lot of work and a good analysis of the evolution of the track to understand which direction to go: “We have a couple of directions to aim for the setup of the car, we need to check some things, I think a lot of cars will be close. Hopefully we can be in that mix”.
“There is still some work to do to be competitive. FP1 was quite good, FP2 not so good at the beginning, but then it was a bit better on the long runs, so now we just need to put everything together to be in the group for tomorrow,” Verstappen added.
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