Max Verstappen has demanded an improvement from Red Bull following another spate of issues on his car at the Miami Grand Prix. Verstappen headed into qualifying at the all-new Miami International Autodrome on the back foot, having battled cooling delays, a gearbox change and a subsequent hydraulic issue across Friday's practice sessions. Despite recovering to claim third on the grid for Sunday's race, the reigning World Champion was left to ponder what might have been as rivals Ferrari locked out the front row with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.
Verstappen lacking rhythm and confidence in the RB18
Reflecting on the grid-deciding session, Verstappen admitted that he did not feel at one with his car. "It was a pain to lose so much time [on Friday]," Verstappen told media including RacingNews365.com . "Of course, I can compensate a lot, but ultimately you just miss the rhythm and confidence in the car to get everything out of it. I think that was also a bit of a problem in Q3. "We didn't drive on Friday and then you don't have any data, either, so you only start on Saturday. "It looked fine [with the result], but I think it could have been so much better if we had had a normal day on Friday."
Verstappen losing patience as Red Bull issues continue
Verstappen sits 27 points down on Leclerc in the Drivers' standings, having retired in Bahrain and Australia with technical problems, and has called on Red Bull to up their game. "It's in the procedures," Verstappen added. "Other teams can get it done, so we should be able to do the same. Of course, I know what went wrong, but I don't want to go into too much detail... it has to be better. "With the gearbox change [for FP2] and what happened afterwards (the hydraulic issue and brake fire), that just shouldn't be possible. "There are more things going wrong this year; whether that's because of the new car is hard to say."
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