Max Verstappen explains mindset for Imola after reliability problems

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen says that he and the team will be taking the season race-by-race and seeing where they end up after a start to the campaign that has seen him having to retire twice out of the first three races.

The Dutchman’s title defence has certainly gotten off to a difficult start, with issues in Bahrain and Australia robbing him both times of a substantial haul of points.

On the plus side, the car is quick as he showed with a win in Saudi Arabia but, clearly, more is needing to be done to ensure the car gets over the finish line at every race.

Indeed, he now has a 46-point deficit to Charles Leclerc in the Drivers’ standings and so it is clear that the fight back is going to have to take place over a number of races now.

Speaking ahead of the Grand Prix weekend in Imola to Red Bull’s media, then, he revealed that they’re going to take it step by step for the upcoming races, and see what happens:

“I’m looking forward to racing again this weekend in Imola, this is obviously the first sprint race of the year so it’s important to make the most of the first practice session, so we have a good understanding of where the set up needs to be for qualifying on Friday.

“The Team trackside and back at the factory in Milton Keynes are working incredibly hard, hopefully we’ll have a straightforward weekend and that we score some good points as a Team. For now, we’ll take it race by race and we’ll see where we end up.”

Verstappen at least knows that his car is fast enough to put up a fight against Ferrari and if Red Bull can get on top of their reliability issues in the near future, he still has a chance of winning the championship.

As he says, though, it’s probably best to just focus on each Grand Prix as it