Max Verstappen: RB21 'Too Slow' After Red Bull 'Struggle For Pace'

Dutch driver Max Verstappen struggled during qualifying to complete an impressive lap, appearing to be on the back foot throughout. He finished in P7, one position behind Lando Norris.

During the session, Max expressed concerns about the Red Bull car, particularly the brakes that seemingly hindered him throughout the lap.

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"Yeah, just the whole weekend, struggling a bit with that," Verstappen said after qualifying.

"Brakes, feeling and stopping power and besides that also just very, very poor grip."

"We tried a lot on the set up and basically all of it didn't work."

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"You know, it didn't give us a clear direction to work in. So just overall a difficult weekend so far."

At the last race in Japan, Verstappen achieved a surprising pole position finish and went on to capture the win.

So far at Bahrain, the RB21 has been not been performing like it did in Japan.

"Here you just get punished a bit harder when you have bigger balance issues," he said.

"Because the tarmac is so aggressive and the wind is also quite high and the track has quite low grip so everything is highlighted more."

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The race will feature the first time that Max Verstappen will have a teammate near him, as Yuki Tsunoda managed to get into Q3, a first for the second Red Bull driver.

While it is a feat for the team to finally get another car through to Q3, Verstappen says it ultimately doesn't matter if the car isn't quick.

The Bahrain track consists mainly of low and medium-speed corners, with particular importance given to braking since certain corners connect. This means that a compromised brake pedal will result in suboptimal exit speeds for the car.

"The positive is that we have two cars in Q3. The negative is that we struggle for pace," he said.

"It's nice to have two cars in there, but when you are too slow, then it doesn't matter."

post quali max

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Verstappen will likely struggle to get past Norris, who has shown impressive pace in the car. He could potentially face pressure from Carlos Sainz or Lewis Hamilton behind him if the Red Bull car is genuinely struggling.

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The hope for Red Bull, in a realsitic ideal scernacio, would be matching or surpasssing the pace of the Mercedes and Ferrari cars.

"I hope that I can stay a bit with the Mercedes and Ferraris," Max said.

"Naturally, I think that McLaren will pull away."

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