Max Verstappen lost just three-thousandths of a second to Lewis Hamilton in the battle for pole position in Hungary, and after qualifying he expressed his displeasure with the car’s settings, calling the handling “appalling”.
Paul Monaghan, Red Bull Racing’s chief race engineer, responded to the words of the current world champion, saying that when choosing the settings for the RB19, the team had made a bet on the race.
Paul Monaghan: “You heard on the radio that it was a tough qualifying for Max, but I got the impression we weren’t the only ones having problems. When you look at the lap times, we don’t have an overwhelming advantage over any of the machines.
Hungary is a short circle so you have to make a choice – bet it all on qualifying or bet on Sunday but settle for difficulty on Saturday. Today we will find out whether our bet was right or not.
Max is aware of all changes to the settings we made for qualifying. Today’s result will show whether we did the right thing or not, and whether we got the balance right, which Max didn’t like so much in qualifying.”
Commenting on Sergio Pérez’s ninth-place start, Monaghan said: “Sergio wants the perfect car and if the car doesn’t suit his preferences, he won’t sit around and do nothing – that’s not his style. Sergio was also unhappy with the set-ups – none of our drivers managed to find the perfect balance in qualifying.
But let’s see how our institutions are performing today. Like I said, at the end of the race we’ll know if we were right or wrong. We will learn that together with almost everyone.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
