Bahrain Grand Prix poleman Max Verstappen believes Honda’s effort with its new Formula 1 engine is its most impressive yet and that Red Bull’s partner had a “great winter”.
Verstappen scored pole position for the 2021 F1 season opener by outqualifying world champion Lewis Hamilton by four tenths of a second.
It followed an impressive pre-season performance from Red Bull, which had sought to play down its early tag as the favourite for the first race.
Verstappen has dominated the Bahrain weekend, and after topping qualifying he said Honda – which claimed an “almost miraculous” achievement in readying an all-new, ultra-compact engine for its final year in F1 – deserved enormous credit.
“Yeah, I think you can say that,” Verstappen said when asked by The Race if Honda’s efforts with its overhauled engine were the most impressive he’d seen.
“That doesn’t mean, of course, that the previous years it wasn’t impressive.
“I think their turnaround has been very good, and their understanding of the engine is impressive.
“And it’s really enjoyable to work with them as well, they’re really passionate and emotional, which I like. They’re just flat out, all the time. They want to win. And you can really see that.
“Big credit to them also for the result today. They had a great winter.”
Verstappen’s advantage in Bahrain could have been even bigger without a small amount of damage he picked up running wide in Q1 that team boss Christian Horner reckoned was worth “about a tenth”.
He's been unstoppable so far on our opening race weekend of 2021 👏
And @Max33Verstappen was too quick for the rest in Saturday's race for pole 🚀#BahrainGP 🇧🇭 #F1 pic.twitter.com/846mv6KBDQ
— Formula 1 (@F1) March 27, 2021
Just two-hundredths of a second separated Verstappen and Hamilton after the first runs in Q3 but Verstappen lamented a “shit” first lap that he later put it down to getting into a slightly bad cycle with his first set of tyres by running wide, losing grip and suffering a loss of traction.
He credited a tidier second lap for his big jump and eventual advantage.
Having played down Red Bull’s performance relative to Mercedes prior to the weekend, Verstappen said it was not a “relief” to emerge fastest.
“That’s what you always aim for right? And of course the last few years, it hasn’t really materialised,” he said.
“The regulations haven’t really changed a lot and I think we knew what our weaknesses were last year.
“It seems like we addressed them so far, at the beginning of the year. Of course I’m very happy with that.
“It’s a great start for us but of course no guarantees for the future.
Horner told Sky F1 that it would be “very, very tight” and joined Verstappen in praising Honda, who Horner said had done a “stellar job”.
But he warned: “Mercedes; look at how they’ve turned up.
“Everybody was writing them off over the last couple of weeks. They’re right there and they’re going to be right there in the race again tomorrow.
“They’re going to be a massive challenge for us to beat, but we’re starting from the best possible place.”
Red Bull’s car has looked better balanced than Mercedes’ from the start of testing and although the Mercedes has looked better this weekend it still appears slightly compromised.
One factor appears to be the different rake concepts, with Mercedes’ car traditionally run lower.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said earlier in the Bahrain weekend that the changes made to the aero rules this year, trimming away part of the floor among some other tweaks to reduce downforce at the rear of the car, had impacted lower-rake designs more.
He also suggested that had been done to hurt Mercedes, which has won the last seven consecutive championships.
Hamilton was complimentary of Red Bull’s performance and said Mercedes needed to do a better job to catch up, but when asked directly if he agreed with Wolff he said: “It’s no secret that the changes of course they’ve been done to peg us back.
“We had the changes of course last year to our engine [a technical directive issued to stop teams using high-power engine modes in qualifying] to do the same thing.
“But that’s OK, we love a challenge and we don’t look down on these things we just work hard to do the best we can and that’s what we’ll do.”
Team-mate Valtteri Bottas said he did not know what impact the new rules had regarding rake concepts but said the all-round RB16B package was simply superior than the W12.
“They have a really strong package overall, their power unit, the chassis, their aero is good,” said Bottas.
“They’ve done a good job over the winter and we need to do a better job.”
When asked about the significance of the different rake concepts, Verstappen said: “It’s our philosophy now for a long time. I don’t think you can put it on that.
“There have been a few factors. We knew our weaknesses from last year. And that’s not only has to do with rake.
“I think also from the engine side Honda has worked really hard to improve their engine in general and I think they’ve done a great job.”
