Verstappen: A car cannot be fast with understeer

And the RB18's tendency to understeer was due to a combination of it being overweight - a problem that plagued most 2022 F1 cars - and the new for 2022 18" Pirelli tyres that were introduced as part of the technical regulations overhaul with ground-effect cars aimed at better and closer racing.

This meant the double F1 Champion struggled to extract pace from his RB18, that is not until Red Bull gave their 2022 car a diet, something Verstappen reflected on in an exclusive interview with Motorsport.com.

Asked about his early struggles with his 2022 ride, the Dutchman said: "Well, now it was just related to the weight of the car.

"Being really overweight created an understeering balance and once we started to get rid of that, it started to be more agile again. Not just twitchy but more agile. You could really use the front end. At the end of the day, that’s also how you really drive a fast car," he explained.

"A car cannot be fast with understeer. It’s impossible," the Red Bull ace insisted. "Especially with the tyres we had this year being a bit more understeer limited as well. You cannot have a car like that."

Verstappen also revealed that the updates his team brought to the RB18 played a role in improving his feel for it, he pointed out: "But also the updates we did to the car [helped].

"[It was about] trying to learn the tyres, trying to really understand how we can preserve them better, which hasn’t been the easiest for sure," Verstappen added.

Despite his early difficulties in 2022, Verstappen went on to secure his second consecutive F1 Title in style, wrapping it up at the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix with four races to spare.

He also won a record 15 races in 2022, as despite Ferrari - with Charles Leclerc - having the upper hand in qualifying, the Verstappen/RB18 package remained the one to beat on race days.