Max Verstappen claims any decision to ban Mercedes from using their so-called ‘party mode’ on the engine would be “unfair”.
After Lewis Hamilton stormed to pole position in Australia by two-thirds of a second, many bemoaned the ability of the world champions to use a special setting which gave a boost in power for a short time.
Following the weekend, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner called on the FIA to limit such modes by suggesting they should come under parc ferme rules, but his Dutch driver doesn’t think that would be the right move.
“I feel the same way,” Verstappen said of his boss’ comments. “But at the same time, one must be honest and understand that Mercedes did the job better than everyone else. Why should they lose their advantage? That would not be fair.
“Otherwise, everyone should just use the same engine, and I don’t think anyone wants that.”
Switching to practice ahead of Sunday’s Bahrain GP, an electrical issue in the first 10 minutes of the daytime session meant he had to watch on from the garage after pushing his car back to the pits, but Max would be satisfied with the recovery made later in the evening.
“For such a short time in the car I managed to find quite a good balance and the long run pace looked pretty positive,” he admitted
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“I was also happy with how the tyre degradation looked at the end of that session. Come race day it will depend a lot on strategy, you can follow at this track better than others so with the right planning and a bit of luck you can get a good result.
“Tomorrow we need to fine tune the short run pace in order to put ourselves in contention on Sunday,” he added. “I’ll try to improve the feeling and balance to put myself in the best position possible.”