Max Verstappen has reflected on his and Red Bull\u2019s expectations for the upgrade package that they will run at the Austrian Grand Prix, with the Dutchman admitting that the squad\u2019s home race is always an \u201cimportant\u201d occasion.<\/p>\n
The outfit faced a tough weekend last time out in Barcelona as Verstappen<\/a> and team mate Isack Hadjar<\/a> were unable to match the pace of their rivals at the front, leaving Team Principal Laurent Mekies<\/a> to label the event a \u201creality check\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, with the RB22 set to feature updates at the Red Bull Ring, Verstappen was asked during Thursday\u2019s media day about his hopes for what this might deliver.<\/p>\n \u201cHopefully of course it will be a bit better \u2013 that’s what we are aiming for,\u201d the four-time World Champion said. \u201cWe hope that it brings a bit more performance to the car, and then we’ll see where that lines us up against the others.<\/p>\n \u201cBut that’s been the story of the season \u2013 one week, one team brings upgrades, and then the next week, someone else. It’s just a normal process, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n The weekend marks a special one for Red Bull<\/a> with it being the team\u2019s home race, while the track is also one at which Verstappen has claimed victory on five occasions.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s always very important,\u201d the 28-year-old commented about the prospect of entering the squad\u2019s home event. \u201cLuckily we’ve already had a lot of great results here, so we just come into this trying to do the best job we can.<\/p>\n \u201cI know there are always a lot of Dutch fans as well, so it just makes it a very nice and enjoyable weekend, seeing the atmosphere, and then of course we focus on the performance and try to do the best we can.\u201d<\/p>\n The 2025 Austrian Grand Prix was not one to remember for Verstappen, who was forced to retire on the opening lap following a collision with Mercedes<\/a>\u2019 Kimi Antonelli<\/a>.<\/p>\n With Antonelli arriving into this year\u2019s event as the championship leader, Verstappen was quizzed on how it feels as a young driver to go up against more experienced names \u2013 a position he is familiar with himself after making his debut in the sport at 17 years old.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the end of the day, I guess that’s also part of life,\u201d he explained. \u201cAt one point you hope to be fighting in a title fight, but when you come in young, it’s normal that you are then the young gun to fight against the older established people.<\/p>\n \u201cBut that’s okay \u2013 he’s doing very well, so there’s no need for advice. He knows what he’s doing and he’s doing that very well, so I think it all looks pretty much under control.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen has reflected on his and Red Bull\u2019s expectations for the upgrade package that they will run…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":760038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-760037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=760037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/760038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}