Verstappen reverts to old rear wing after successive crashes
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Verstappen reverts to old rear wing after successive crashes
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Red Bull have reverted to a conventional rear wing
for Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix after four-time world champion Max Verstappen
suffered successive high-speed crashes in Austria
and Britain.
The Dutch driver slammed the behaviour of
his car's wing at Silverstone as "super-dangerous" after he crashed
out while chasing third place.
"We’ll go back to the old one and then see
whenever the latest, or new one, is ready again to
be used for us," he said at Spa-Francorchamps on Thursday.
Ferrari, and then
Red Bull, have caught eyes with a novel 'Macarena' rear wing that
features a top flap rotating through 180 degrees in straight-line mode for more
speed.
McLaren have also been experimenting with something
similar.
Verstappen's team boss Laurent Mekies told the
BBC that Red Bull had found a problem with the wing in tests after Silverstone.
The 28-year-old driver said after this month's
British Grand Prix, the race before Spa, that "while turning into the
corner, the rear wing is not fully attaching, and you lose a lot of
downforce for that. You just spin off the track.”
"At this point, it’s super dangerous because I
could
have really hurt myself two times. I was lucky in Austria; I was lucky here.
But that’s why you get really fed up with it.”
Verstappen's French teammate Isack Hadjar, who did
not experience the same problems, said he hoped the ditched wing
could return soon.
"I guess I got
lucky for two rounds in a row," he said. "It could have happened to
none of us and it could have happened four times to
the both of us."
Spa is a favourite track
and almost
a home race for Belgian-born Verstappen, who has won there three times.
Asked about his prospects this time, with Red Bull
fourth in the standings, the driver left it
open.
"Let’s see
tomorrow, to be honest. I don’t
know how
we are going to perform. It’s
as simple as that," he said.
"It’s better not to think about it
too much and just go out."
Reporting originally appeared via Citizen Digital. Read the full source for additional context.