by VALERIO BARRETTA
Verstappen looks for a hat trick in Imola
After victories in 2021 and 2022, Max Verstappen he wants to get the hat trick in Imola. A track that has always been liked by the reigning world champion and Red Bull, but which this year could reserve some surprises. Imola, in fact, could be the definitive testing ground for the McLaren updates so appreciated in Miami and will certainly represent the debut of the developments Ferrari. Developments that Verstappen defined as “great” and which, according to him, would even call into question the current hierarchies (which the drivers and Frederic Vasseur have repeatedly denied) as already happened in Florida with McLaren.
Verstappen’s words
Red Bull also brings some updates to Santerno, but certainly not as impactful as those of the Maranello team: “There are more and more teams coming forward with updates, for example I saw a Ferrari that comes with a big package, so at the moment it’s very difficult to know where we will be“.
“About our updates, this is not a response to McLaren. These things have already been planned for some time. It’s not like a team comes in with updates and we say, ‘Oh, let’s respond now.’ These are developments already in the pipeline“, he continued. “We are satisfied, but of course we have to keep pushing, because thereand teams behind us are definitely catching up. As we saw in Miami, when we fail to perform at 100%, the others are ahead, and we must try to make sure we don’t have too many weekends of this type. McLaren has presented a very important update, so I think we will only find out here how good this package will be, because it always takes a little time to fine-tune everything. But we knew, these are small details that can sometimes make a big difference in terms of lap times. I think the first five races weren’t as simple as they try to make people believe, because it’s always a question of attention to detail that makes the difference. Some weekends were better than others, but I believe that since the beginning of the year the other teams are closer than last year. In general I expect this season to be more competitive than 2023“.
“Imola is a rather complicated track, with many high-speed corners. They removed some sausages, so we have to see how the riding style will evolve here. I remember that here you couldn’t go on the curb much, precisely because of the sausages. Now I think we can make more use of the curbs, the track will be more alive and will remind me of my F3 dayswhich were very funny“, he concluded.
