F1 News
Verstappen advises his fans in Austria: 'Don't get too drunk'
- Toby McLuskie
Yuki Tsunoda performed something last week that drivers from a team other than Red Bull Racing had not yet managed to do this year: he beat Max Verstappen. The little Japanese from AlphaTauri, Red Bull Racing's sister team, was too fast for the two-time world champion in an off-road race. Ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix, Verstappen looked back on that lost race.
In his monster truck, Verstappen did have a handicap. As the Dutchman was the best in the Red Bull-organised race during qualifying, he had to carry 40 kilos of extra weight. That made it just a little too difficult to beat Tsunoda during the race. "I think it was good," Verstappen looked back on the event during the press conference. "We had a good day and we definitely laughed a lot. So that's for me the most important as well."
Monster truck a painful experience
Racing in a Formula 1 car is not known for being comfortable. Nor is driving in a mega-truck, in Verstappen's experience. "Quite painful," was his response to the question of what it was like? "I thought the suspension would do a better job, but it didn't really. So I was actually jumping around quite a lot."
This weekend at the Austrian Grand Prix, Verstappen and not Tsunoda will again be the favourite. The championship leader will be cheered at the Red Bull Ring by tens of thousands of Dutch people, who have travelled to Spielberg. "Don't get too drunk," Verstappen advises his fans. "Just watch the race and enjoy it. It will be good to see them. I mean it's always nice to see the orange color next to the track. I think also about this track is that on any grandstand you sit you can actually see a lot of the track and that makes it I think very unique."