Max Verstappen has conceded that Red Bull \u201cneed to work harder\u201d after the Dutchman experienced a \u201clonely\u201d drive to P4 in the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, while team mate Isack Hadjar recovered from a tough start to claim P6.<\/p>\n
Qualifying had left the drivers encouraged by the pace of the RB22, with Verstappen<\/a> and Hadjar<\/a> lining up in fifth and sixth respectively. Sunday\u2019s race seemed to prove more challenging, however, and Verstappen crossed the line in fourth place nearly 17 seconds adrift of McLaren<\/a>\u2019s Lando Norris<\/a> in third.<\/p>\n Sharing his thoughts on how his afternoon had gone, the four-time World Champion answered: \u201cPretty lonely to be honest for me the whole race. There was not so much going on \u2013 I was mainly just following the battle ahead on the screens, because for me we were just too slow.<\/p>\n \u201cOn every [tyre] compound we couldn\u2019t follow, so every stint we lost a few seconds. A little bit tough, but on the other hand also [it\u2019s] pretty much how the whole weekend was, I guess. On every compound I\u2019m just lacking a little bit, so we tried to do our best.<\/p>\n \u201cI think strategy-wise we did a good job \u2013 it was the winning strategy, so we cannot complain about that. We just need to work harder and try to improve the car.\u201d<\/p>\n Looking ahead to where this leaves the team heading into the next round in Austria, Verstappen said: \u201cWith clear areas where we need to improve. The car\u2019s lacking in some places, but at the same time I think also tyre management, we\u2019re still a bit behind when you have the high-energy tracks, so that\u2019s stuff we need to work on.\u201d<\/p>\n On the other side of the Red Bull<\/a> garage, Hadjar<\/a>\u2019s race got off to a difficult start when he slipped backwards during the opening lap, dropping him far down the order. The Frenchman managed to recover several positions as the event wore on, however, and ultimately climbed back up to sixth.<\/p>\n Despite salvaging this result, Hadjar could not hide his frustration over the issue of the launch when he assessed his race later on.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just need to work on our starts because it\u2019s not possible to keep going like that every race weekend \u2013 it\u2019s the same story,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n \u201cToday was a nightmare, but the whole weekend I was struggling. It\u2019s really the point we need to work on, because everyone\u2019s made progress but I went backwards. The procedure is too difficult, the window is too small.\u201d<\/p>\n Hadjar went on to suggest that the team are performing well aside from the problem surrounding the starts.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything else but the start was very good,\u201d he added. \u201cThat\u2019s why it\u2019s a bit frustrating \u2013 it\u2019s like the easiest but at the same time the most important thing and we can\u2019t do it. Everything else that\u2019s very hard, we are doing it pretty well.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the pace in Quali was good, race pace I felt fine \u2013 obviously the strategy had to be adapted to the start. [We just need] the start fixed, and then we can start talking.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen has conceded that Red Bull \u201cneed to work harder\u201d after the Dutchman experienced a \u201clonely\u201d drive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-492708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}