Is Red Bull's RB20 still 'a monster'? Verstappen explains

Following the Italian Grand Prix, Max Verstappen did not hold back, as he said Red Bull turned the RB20 into a "monster". In the two weeks leading up to the Azerbaijan GP, the Austrians had an enormous challenge to face to fix their issues. According to the three-time world champion, optimisation entering qualifying was not perfect, but at least the car is not a "monster" anymore.

"It's always difficult to know what will happen in Q3, but as soon as I went out in Q1, the first lap, I just felt the car took a step back," Verstappen GPblog and others in Azerbaijan. "We made some changes and the car just became incredibly unpredictable and difficult to drive as a result."

"We made some changes and the car just became incredibly unpredictable, difficult, just because of the changes that we made, and that is of course… I'm a bit disappointed with that because you always try to, of course, optimise things and try to make it better, and unfortunately I think we just tipped it over the edge. Shame that that happened into qualifying," he added.

"Then, of course, my first run in Q3 I lost it in the last corner, otherwise you're still fighting for P2, P3, but then, I mean, you still have a run, you know? You can still improve your lap time and I just didn't have the feeling in the car. I didn't feel comfortable because the car was difficult and when you don't feel comfortable you can't attack corners, you're probably a bit under it and that's basically what happened," the Dutchman explained.

Asked if he still thinks the RB20 is a "monster", the Dutchman doesn't think so anymore. "No, no, no, I think we actually we did improve the car, but now with the setup we tried to, of course, perfect it, like make a few things better, [it] unfortunately went the other way," Verstappen concluded.

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