Lammers: 'Verstappen was vulnerable this weekend because of that problem'

"I think when they were on the plane in the evening, that's when they thought, 'we do have work to do'. If you also saw the differences on the straight line in speed between the Mercedes and the Red Bull, that's not something that just goes up in smoke", Lammers says in the NOS Formula 1-podcast. Verstappen said after the race that he was happy with his second place behind Valtteri Bottas, because there was not more in it because of the lack of speed.

"He is getting older, so you just have the development of his age then. I think his drive is definitely still there when he gets in the car. I think he is a bit more relaxed, but on the other hand he knows that fifteen kilometres top speed is a lot. He can pulverise his steering wheel with white knuckles, but that won't solve the speed difference. It is what it is. He knows from himself that he always gives 100 percent, maybe even 102 percent."

Understeer made Verstappen vulnerable

Throughout the weekend, the Dutchman suffered from understeer. According to Lammers, this makes the race much more difficult compared to oversteer and made Verstappen more vulnerable. "The difficulty goes up, because he had quite a bit of understeer from time to time this weekend both on a dry track and on the slippery track. He steers in, but it doesn't react the way you want it to."

"Then on top of that, you become much more vulnerable, because if you have a little bit of understeer, then you become very vulnerable when you still want to push to stay with Bottas, for example. Then you tend to brake too late in relation to the understeer and then the understeer becomes even worse. In short, understeer is really annoying, because you can't do much with it. With oversteer you can still dose it a bit and be careful on the throttle", says Lammers.