23/09/2023
NEWS STORY
Max Verstappen has suggested that those who believe his team's Singapore slump was down to the FIA's latest technical directive should "suck on an egg".
His comment comes days after the Dutchman claimed that those who criticise his and his team's domination of the sport are not real F1 fans.
The directive, which aimed to curb flexing bodywork, was issued in time for the Singapore event, which happened to mark Red Bull's worst performance of the season and ended a record breaking winning streak for the Austrian outfit and Verstappen.
Many believed Red Bull's loss of form that weekend was directly related to the directive even though team boss, Christian Horner insisted that it was the same car run at Zandvoort at Monza.
While Mercedes boss for once opted to sit on the fence, Lewis Hamilton admitted that he would be "suspicious" if the RB19 wasn't back on its usual "phenomenal" form this weekend... and back on its phenomenal form it was with the Dutchman topping every session and claiming pole from his nearest rival by 0.581s.
Asked today, if there had been any repeats of the issue that plagued his team last weekend, Verstappen was adamant.
"Zero... Singapore didn't happen for us!" he replied.
"Honestly, we had a bad weekend," he continued. "Then people start saying it's all because of the technical directive, but I think they can go suck on an egg.
"From my side, I was just very fired up to have a good weekend here and make sure we were strong."
Having changed tactics during the Friday sessions, feeling that he could get more from his tyres by not attacking the opening sector so aggressively, Verstappen is understood to have benefitted from changes made to his car following this morning's session.
"It's always difficult to judge," he said of the gap to his rivals, including a 0.773s gap to his teammate. "After final practice I thought they were quite close, but luckily we made some tiny adjustments and it helped it out a bit.
"And then in sector one, once you feel very confident in the car, you can push it a bit more and that's what happened in qualifying."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Suzuka here.