JEDDAH – World champion Max Verstappen hopes to put his season-opening disappointment behind him and show the true potential of his new Red Bull car at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
“You could see that. In turn one, I didn’t risk too much in the fight with Charles. It was all clean and I was like ‘I’m happy with second here’, but to lose so many points was very disappointing.
“You know in a championship where sometimes it can be very tight, at the end, these are very important points.”
Leclerc won ahead of Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz in a resounding one-two for the Italian team with Lewis Hamilton taking third place for Mercedes as Verstappen was followed into retirement by Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez.
It was Ferrari’s first win since 2019 and installed them as leaders of the embryonic championship.
“The Jeddah track is still very new for us. Last year, the humidity was challenging,” said Verstappen.
“It’s a really quick track with high-speed straights and this year’s cars are slightly heavier so it’s going to be interesting to see how they perform.”
Last season’s inaugural Saudi event, in December, was the penultimate race of the championship and delivered high drama with two red flag stoppages and fiery competition between Verstappen and Hamilton before the Briton won to set up a furious and controversial finale in Abu Dhabi.
Red Bull team chief Christian Horner said he hoped his team can avoid more reliability issues, but conceded Ferrari showed in Bahrain they were fast.
“We may have made some strategic miscalculations, but Ferrari had the pace,” Horner said.
“It was encouraging for us that we took the fight to them. Max was obviously very disappointed, but he’s pragmatic too and it’s a long year. He knows we’ve got a good car. We’ve just got to get on top of understanding this issue.”
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