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Windsor: 'Red Bull and Max should start worrying about Honda'
- Jeroen Immink
The Italian Grand Prix was once again all about damage limitation for Max Verstappen and Red Bull. At the Monza circuit, the competition were once again too fast, leaving no more than P6 for the Dutchman. Formula One journalist Peter Windsor highlighted the following problem for Red Bull.
Balance is not just a problem for Red Bull
Already during qualifying at Monza, Verstappen again suffered from the problems the RB20 has had to deal with since the Miami Grand Prix. In Q3, the three-time world champion was gearing up for a quick final run but after his car was fitted with new soft tyres, the balance was gone and Verstappen couldn't improve enough. But after the race, Windsor identified yet another problem.
"Max did a good job, I think. Got everything out of the car from his point of view, his personal point of view, if you're thinking about the championship. Not a bad day of damage limitation as well. He got a few points. And Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri took points away from Lando Norris, obviously Max's closest contender for the championship. So from Max's point of view, that could have been a much worse day," Windsor informed.
Red Bull came up short on the straights, according to Windsor
Windsor saw that Verstappen also came up short on the straights, preventing him from attacking Lewis Hamilton. "They lost power for quite a lot of the race. Max was down at 317, 318 kilometres per hour top speed towards the end of the race. They were able to give him 338 or thereabouts 338, 339. But a lot of time, when Max could have been closing on Lewis Hamilton, was lost because he was down on power. So there's another thing you can say there. If you're going to have a race when you've got that power problem in the engine and he is so slow in a straight line, then maybe have it in a race when you're not going to be in the top three anyway," Windsor added.
"But having said that, they've gone through an additional engine already. And now this power loss in the Italian Grand Prix, you've got to start worrying a little bit about the Honda powertrain situation, the Red Bull powertrain. But anyway, we'll see going forward. They said that was a clipping problem. Whether that is a chronic thing remains to be seen, of course," Windsor concluded.
This article has been created in collaboration with Matt Gretton