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Verstappen reveals he ran FP2 with "cut" floor

17:53, 29 Jun 2018

byNicolás Quarles van Ufford

Red Bull's Max Verstappen has revealed that he drove the second free practice session with a damaged floor, as he broke something during FP1 earlier on Friday.

Red Bull are very itchy to get a good result in Austria, as it is the home race of the team. Daniel Ricciardo got a podium place last season and Max Verstappen got another one in 2016, but it's been a good while since the team has actually won there.

The fact that Verstappen is now driving with a damaged floor could be a concern or the Bulls. The Dutchman said that the floor affected his performance in both FP1 and FP2.

"I don't think it was a perfect day, we had a damaged floor," Verstappen told Motorsport.

"Something broke off the inside of the floor, so my second practice session I had to run with a floor that was a little bit cut, let's say it like that.

"It was anyway an old floor."

Will this affect his performance in any way going forward like it did today?

"We'll put on a new one [floor] tomorrow, but today we had to be a bit limited on that, so that definitely compromised the downforce of my car a bit.

That will be resolved come FP3 and qualifying-time then. However, there were some other things about the car that the 20-year-old doesn't like, apart from the damaged floor.

"Just not the balance we wanted, chasing a bit the balance.

"We never really found the sweet spot yet, so work to do tonight.

"I don't think it's the tyres, it's the car balance we were not happy with."

The fact that Verstappen has such a good feel for what's good and bad about the car technically, that's a good thing. We're sure he'll be helping the team with the set-up of the car tonight so Red Bull can do their home crowd proud on Sunday.