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Verstappen responds after question on updates: 'We're not first right?'
- Estéban den Toom
Max Verstappen finished qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix in third place. Verstappen will be seeing plenty of orange ahead of him on Sunday in Budapest, and it won't be just from his fans. Indeed, Lando Norris is in pole position and Oscar Piastri will start the race from P2. Verstappen commented on his performance and updates to the RB20 at the post-qualifying press conference.
Verstappen on qualifying at the Hungaroring
"It was alright, but not good enough," Verstappen began when asked about the fastest lap in Q3. "The whole weekend has just been a little bit too slow. We tried to optimise everything, tried quite a few things actually with the car. At the end, still too slow. So, yeah, it is what it is."
Verstappen on the updates to the RB20
Verstappen's RB20 has received quite a few updates. If this doesn't work, I don't know either, that was Verstappen's tendency. So? How did the Dutchman's car fare during qualifying? "They are definitely working, but we are still not the first, right? So we need more. It' s as simple as that," Verstappen said.
"Looking back at my qualifying, I was very happy with the laps but yeah balance wise everything is really on the edge. I'm pushing as hard as I can and then of course you have little moments here and there. I feel like I probably push harder than I did last year but it's just not coming anymore to have these great lap times. I guess it just means that we are a bit slower, so we have work to do. Simple as that," the Red Bull driver continued.
Verstappen has to fight McLarens
Red Bull will face increasing opposition from McLaren throughout the season. On that, Verstappen said the following: "It's been like that already for a while, so we are well aware of that. We are pushing as hard as we can, but clearly at the moment it's still not how we want it to be. We'll continue to do so, we'll try to find more performance, but I'm also well aware that that's not very easy to find suddenly throughout the season with things already planned and just the way the car is."
"We'll see. There are many races, there are a lot of things that can happen in qualifying, with conditions. We just need to stay focused and do the best we can every single time and optimise our performances," concluded the number-one driver on the car.
This article was written in collaboration with Sophia Crothall.