Good vibes continue to emanate from the Red Bull-Honda camp with Max Verstappen revealing that motivation is high between the new partners as they prepare for the first season of a new era for both organisations.
During an appearance on Servus TV, Verstappen was asked if he could keep the momentum of good form and results he enjoyed during the latter half of last season, he replied, “Difficult to say because we don’t know what the others are doing. From our side, things are positive and everybody is highly motivated which is important and great to see."
Motivation shouldn't be hard to find in either camp, Red Bull will be itching to stick it to Renault and their former driver Daniel Ricciardo, while one of Honda's missions will certainly be to trounce McLaren.
But Verstappen is wary of his team being sluggish out the gates as they have tended to be in recent years, “We need to make sure that from the start we are a little bit closer so we can fight for wins a bit sooner."
"It seems like that throughout the season our car just kept progressing in a positive way and this definitely helped us out at the end of the season again, but we need to be better a little sooner than at the end of the year."
The same might apply to the Dutchman whose 2018 season also took a while to get going, a period of waywardness and silly errors preceded a remarkable turnaround during the latter half of the season which was only matched by eventual World Champion Lewis Hamilton.
By all accounts, it took some tears and mentoring (bollocking?) by merciless Helmut Marko to get Verstappen back on track, “The first six races weren’t exactly positive but I learned a lot. It definitely helped me in the later races."
“All my life I worked together with my dad, and he is very tough too but ultimately, that’s a good thing. It got me into Formula 1, of course with all the support from Red Bull and Helmut."
“But you have to remain critical and that was necessary after those weekends in China and Monaco, we talked about it afterwards. Obviously, these things shouldn’t happen but at times you need to go through them to grow stronger," mused Verstappen.
https://www.grandprix247.com/2019/01/14/marko-max-was-in-tears-after-monaco-crash/
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