Max Verstappen sends warning as Red Bull deal with problem on his car

08 June 2024 , 16:56

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Max Verstappen suffered a difficult day in Montreal on Friday (Image: Getty Images)

Max Verstappen is worried about the implications of his practice car gremlins on the rest of his weekend's efforts at the Canadian Grand Prix.

Friday running was curtailed for all drivers as the rain poured in Montreal. But Verstappen had even less time out on track than his peers as he suffered an electrical problem on his car early in the second session which forced him to return to the pits.

Red Bull confirmed that they had found a problem on the car's energy recovery system which meant his session was ended prematurely. The affected parts have been replaced for the rest of this weekend and sent back to the UK for analysis at the team's Milton Keynes base.

The Dutchman is less worried about his lack of track time, though, than he is about what the problem could mean for the rest of his weekend and beyond. And he hopes his Red Bull team can find the answers sooner rather than later.

He said: "Unfortunately [in] FP2 not many laps for me. There was a suspected electrical issue, so they told me to box, and they're investigating now. It's not ideal. I mean, I would have liked to drive more laps and some other people had a few more laps in the dry, a few more laps now in the wet.

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"So, it's definitely not how I would have liked to get on in FP2. But I think it's more important to just figure out what actually happened and what kind of implications that will have for this weekend or the rest of the year."

It is another issue that Verstappen and his team certainly did not need. They are already worried about their performance at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve this weekend, which has plenty of kerbs and bumps which proved to be their Achilles Heel last time out in Monaco.

Max Verstappen suffered an electrical issue on track in Montreal (Getty Images)

Team adviser Helmut Marko said Red Bull have made some changes in hope that the car will deal with the bumps better. He said: "We have found some problems after Monaco, and I hope that we can make steps with the new set-up for this weekend. When Max was out on track, he set purple times in sector two, so that looks promising."

Reacting to Verstappen's car gremlins, Marko said the team is still investigating exactly what went wrong. He added: "The problem is on the engine side. We have to take the engine out now to find the exact reason, but it is on the electric part of the engine.

"Of course, it's annoying because the first session was already mostly wet and without conclusions, but for the set-up let's hope that [Saturday] is dry during that final practice session. If we get one complete dry session then it doesn't hurt so much."

Daniel Moxon