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Max Verstappen will be hoping to have a “clean start” to the weekend at the 2022 F1 Spanish GP after a messy Miami GP saw him lose out on valuable running time during Friday practice.
The Dutchman says he’s had some well-deserved break following his victory in Miami and that he’s looking forward to racing at the venue where he achieved his first career victory. Speaking to the media, he said:
“We had an incredible week in Miami, I’ve had some time to rest with my family since and now I’m looking forward to driving in Barcelona again. I have a lot of good memories at the track, from my first win in Formula 1 back in 2016 when I was 18. Hopefully we can keep the momentum going from the last few races with a clean start from Friday onwards.”
Reliability issues once again plagued Red Bull in Miami, leading to Max Verstappen being confined to his garage throughout most of Friday's run. The lack of running on a brand-new circuit led to sub-optimal qualifying, leading to the Dutchman starting behind both Ferraris.
While Verstappen eventually managed to recover from his losses in the race to take an emphatic victory, he was nevertheless frustrated with Red Bull’s inferior reliability.
Max Verstappen hopes for better reliability for Red Bull in Barcelona
Heading to Barcelona after a week’s break, Max Verstappen says he’s looking forward to racing at the circuit where he took his first career victory. Given the vast amount of historical data that the team has about the circuit, the reigning world champion hopes to have a much cleaner weekend from the get-go at the venue.
He said:
“Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is a track that we all know very well as a team, due to the amount of testing we have done there over the years so, unlike Miami, we have a substantial amount of data to use ahead of the race.”
Max Verstappen won on his debut for Red Bull in 2016 at Barcelona after the leading Mercedes pair of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg collided with each other.
The young Dutchman fiercely held off immense pressure from the Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel throughout the race to record Red Bull’s first victory of the season and reward the team’s faith in promoting him mid-season.
