Verstappen explains why he had little action in Hungary
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Max Verstappen concluded the second free practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix in 11th place, but the Dutchman is not overly worried. Red Bull Racing are trying to save tyres this weekend, although Verstappen himself thinks that is a bit of a waste.
Verstappen is driving with car updates this weekend. The concept of the 'letterbox' sidepods has been further developed, there are new flaps on the front wing, and furthermore, the cooling has been improved. Red Bull hope it will increase Verstappen's chances of a sixth consecutive pole position and seventh consecutive win this weekend at the Hungaroring. Before that, there is still some work to be done.
Verstappen saves tyres
Hungary will test the alternative qualifying format. Q1 on hard tyres, Q2 on medium and in Q3 on soft tyres. With that format, there are also fewer tyres available over the entire weekend, making teams a little more cautious in practice.
"With this format, we use as few tyre sets as possible on Friday. That's very unfortunate for all that crowd here today. I do think that needs to be looked at," said Verstappen, according to Verstappen.com, immediately after the second free practice session at the Hungaroring.
Because there was so little driving, Verstappen was also unable to say much about the new updates after the session. Before that, he will have to wait and see what the data says, but Verstappen will only dive into that tonight with his engineers. That will show whether the correlation between the wind tunnel and the track is correct. About the long-run pace, Verstappen was optimistic.
"The car didn't feel wrong, I had a bit of understeer and also the long run went well, we were reasonably competitive. It is difficult to say anything about the speed over one lap, but in general, the car is quite strong," concluded the two-time world champion.
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