Max happy after productive Friday: 'Good first week'

Published on 21 February 2020 by Stefan Meens

On the final day of the first pre-season test, Max Verstappen drove his new Aston Martin Red Bull Racing car during the morning session, before handing over driving duties to his team mate Alex Albon in the afternoon. The Dutchman lapped the Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya 86 times in the RB16, the most of any drivers out on track in the morning. Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas was quickest, clocking a 1:15.732. Max’ fastest effort resulted in a 1:17.636.

“We were able to do a lot of laps today and gather a lot of data, which is the main aim during the first week”, said Max to Verstappen.nl. “We haven’t really looked at lap times. Today we did a race simulation. It all felt good and the reliability is great. We really managed to learn a lot about the car.”

Before starting his race simulation, it appeared the Red Bull crew had an issue with RB16’s anti-roll  bar. Max: “We wanted to change something on the car anyway so it worked out well. Also, because of a red flag during the race simulation, we didn’t really lose any time.”

Reflecting on the first week of testing, Max is happy with the progress made. “We were able to complete our entire test programme so I’m happy so far. It was a good first week.”