Verstappen laughs at discussion with GP: 'I felt like a pogo stick'
F1 News
Max Verstappen's season was already nearing perfection, yet for a long time there was one (minuscule) area for improvement: his starts. Not that the triple world champion got off to a bad start every time, there was simply room for improvement. In Mexico, there was no fault at all with the (eventually) two starts. In both cases, Verstappen launched off his starting spot.
Two great starts, just as the previous race. In America, the Dutchman even complimented his team for that. Red Bull Racing has recently invested a lot in improving their starts. After the Mexican Grand Prix, Verstappen explained what exactly had been done.
"I think it's just doing our procedures a bit better, understanding the tyre grip, clutch settings. I think we've just been a bit more sharp on that. I think in the beginning of the year we had a bit of an issue, but then we fixed the issue."
Verstappen discusses with Lambiase
Verstappen was not yet satisified. "I think we still didn't do the right thing with tyre temperature, clutch setting. It's all very sensitive. If you're just next to it, you might have too much wheelspin or not enough engagement. It's very difficult to get right. I think today especially it was very good," Verstappen looked back.
In the first half of the race, Verstappen had an argument with his engineer Gianpiero Lambiase. "It was just a kerb," Verstappen explained. " I tried to also clip the kerb like people around me were doing but I was like a pogo stick sometimes. I tried, just trying different lines. GP’s my race engineer, but I think at one point he was trying to be the driver. We have those discussion sometimes, sometimes I'm the race engineer and then he's the driver. We just swap roles."