An untelevised crew radio message from the Italian GP has proven Max Verstappen telling Laurent Mekies that Purple Bull ‘weaknesses’ have been evident in Monza.
Max Verstappen joined Antonelli and Russell on the rostrum in Monza, taking a 3rd podium within the final 4 races. The Italian GP adopted a tricky weekend in Zandvoort for Verstappen, with the Dutch driver crashing out of his final house race after one lap.
Purple Bull Staff Principal Laurent Mekies praised Verstappen’s Monza drive as a “huge step ahead” on crew radio on the finish of the race. Nonetheless, the four-time world champion was much less happy with the efficiency of his RB22.
The complete dialog between Verstappen, Mekies, and race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase on the cooldown lap was as follows:
Lambiase: “Properly accomplished, Max. That’s a valiant effort, mate, as all the time. Picked up a podium, so good work. We’ll have fail 84, cost on and may you push out of Flip 2 for temperatures, please? Thanks.”
Mekies: “Properly accomplished, Max. Sturdy race tempo. You stayed with these guys and big, large overtakes you’ve got accomplished all race lengthy. However the most effective information is a powerful race tempo. We all know we’ve got extra we will extract, but it surely was a giant step ahead at this time and mega overtaking. Properly accomplished.”
Verstappen: “Yeah. It’s a very good podium. Once more, you possibly can see clearly our weaknesses right here. Simply sitting again on the straights and the journey, as we all know.”
Mekies: “Yep. All clear, Max. Properly accomplished.”
Ongoing rear axle situation for Verstappen
A supply of Verstappen’s Monza wrestle was a problem with the rear axle of his Purple Bull that plagued him all through the race after first being famous in qualifying.
“Yeah, it’s nonetheless there. Nothing modified. It’s simply not good,” he stated within the post-race press convention.
“You wrestle on the bumps, the kerbs, within the low-speed particularly. It’s nonetheless just like the rear axle is simply not very compliant.
“So, for positive, it was not excellent once more at this time and costing efficiency, but it surely’s what it’s.”
He added: “I had my points yesterday that, after all, have been nonetheless there at this time.
“But in addition, I feel it was fairly clear throughout the race that we simply can’t sustain with the deployment of the Mercedes-powered vehicles and that’s, after all, very powerful on a observe like Monza.
“After all, with the overtake mode it seemed fairly promising, however as quickly as I obtained within the lead, it was very onerous to defend.
“And that has been a bit my downside all through the entire race.
“Even after we had the VSC, we boxed, had higher tyres, I’m overtaking vehicles, however as quickly as they will cling in that overtake mode, it’s simply too highly effective for us to really actually defend that, even on higher tyres. So it took me some time even to clear the McLarens.
“However for us to be on the rostrum, I feel after a really troublesome weekend in Zandvoort the place the automobile was probably not to my liking, we managed to have a powerful turnaround from Friday to Saturday and the automobile was undoubtedly in a greater window.
“However we nonetheless have a couple of bits and areas that we all know should be higher, plus the plain deployment on the straights.”
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