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Marko: RB19 not necessarily further developed in direction of Verstappen

22 August 2023 at 18:00
Last update 22 August 2023 at 18:27
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  • GPblog.com

The RB19 is an incredibly good car, but it is mostly Max Verstappen who dominates Formula 1 with it. Indeed, Sergio Perez has been unable to match the speed of his Dutch teammate for months. According to Helmut Marko, this has nothing to do with the car being developed just the way Verstappen wants it.

The Red Bull Racing advisor tells Motorsport-Magazin.com that Verstappen especially wants a lot of grip at the front. "He cannot live with understeer. If the rear is loose and the car swings, even at 300 km/h, a Verstappen is not bothered by that, he has it under control. Most other drivers find it harder to deal with a nervous car."

Verstappen feels a lot more comfortable in the RB19 than Perez, but that has more to do with the nature of the car than specifically listening more to Max's wishes. "That is not the case. At the beginning of the 2022 season, the car tended to understeer because of the overweight, because of the weight distribution. But since dieting the car, it has reverted back to the tendency to oversteer."

Perez looking for perfect set-up

However, the Austrian team is doing everything possible to find a set-up that ensures less oversteer, allowing Perez to excel better. "We are now well on the way to getting the set-up so that Perez feels more comfortable as well, but the car is [and remains] still fast."

Perez won two races in the first half of the season, in Saudi Arabia and in Azerbaijan. In the second half of the season, he hopes to add an extra number of wins and defend his second place in the world championship. Perez is currently 40 points ahead of Fernando Alonso, his closest rival in the World Championship.