F1 News: Max Verstappen Hits Back At Claims That Singapore Struggles Were Down To FIA Directive Changes
Max Verstappen was quick to hit back at critics who claimed that the Red Bull struggles in Singapore were attributed to the FIA's rules clarification regarding flexible bodywork.
Red Bull's unbeatable record of consecutive wins reached an end during the Singapore GP weekend after Ferrari took the pole position and went on to win the Grand Prix. Carlos Sainz, Lando Norris, and Lewis Hamilton occupied the top three places, leaving no room for any of the two Red Bulls.
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A recent directive TD18 from the FIA clarified the rules regarding flexible bodywork led to critics claiming that Red Bull was forced to comply with the rule, thus causing their RB19s to lose performance in Singapore.
However, Verstappen secured pole position during the Japanese Grand Prix qualifying by a huge margin of more than half a second. The Dutch driver has always been of the opinion that the RB19 is more suited to Suzuka than the Marina Bay Street Circuit. He revealed:
“I already felt from the preparation we had that this was going to be a good track.
"But you never really know how good it’s going to be.
"But from lap one it’s been really, really nice and of course you try to find little improvements here and there and I think we did that. To be on pole here is fantastic.”
Verstappen put an end to the speculations about the drop in pace in Singapore being caused by the technical directive. He added:
“We had a bad weekend.
"Of course then people start talking about it’s all because of the technical directives. I think they can go suck on an egg.
"From my side I was just very fired-up to to have a good weekend here and make sure that we were strong."
Revealing that he wanted to bounce back from a disappointing Singapore GP weekend, Verstappen concludes that Suzuka offers them the chance to win again:
“That was the aim.
"Especially coming from Singapore I wanted to have a really strong weekend. Of course we know that this is the first proper opportunity to win it so we also want to do that.”
