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Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz had a humorous conversation about each other's cars in the drivers’ press conference, ahead of the 2022 Saudi Arabian GP. The duo, who debuted together with Red Bull’s junior team Toro Rosso in 2014, shared some light banter about the speed and reliability of their cars ahead of the Free Practice session.
Taking a jibe at Sainz's car, Verstappen said:
“Ferrari has the slowest car (laughs)... That’s for sure. It’s all Carlos, it’s all Carlos’ chance.”
Responding to the Red Bull driver’s jibe, Sainz said:
“And Red Bull is very reliable too.”
Replying to Sainz's comments on Red Bull’s reliability, the Dutchman said:
“Ahh (laughs) it is.”
The drivers were referring to their previous outing in Bahrain, where Ferrari won the race with a dominant 1-2, while Red Bull suffered the ignominy of both their cars ending in DNFs.
While the two have shared a great camaraderie since their debut days in the Toro Rosso F1 team, both former team-mates have often had hilarious banter both on and off camera in the F1 paddock. While Verstappen is a world champion, Sainz has progressed to becoming a potential champion in the waiting.
Max Verstappen believes retirements in Jeddah were unlucky ones
The Red Bull F1 champion believes the double retirements in the Bahrain GP were unfortunate. According to Max Verstappen, the team needs to get ahead of its teething problems if it aims to be a part of the championship battle.
Commenting on the issues faced at the Bahrain weekend, the Dutchman said:
“Well, we didn’t encounter it in testing so we didn’t know about it at all, and don’t know how we would have spotted it. But it's you can say in a way unlucky but it shouldn’t happen. It's simple as that. To retire basically three cars was pretty bad. I mean there is no way around that. We have to do better if we want to fight for the title, we cannot have too many races like the one in Bahrain.”
The 2021 world champion revealed that the team had not encountered any technical issues related to balance or fuel pump issues in pre-season testing or free practice in Bahrain. The Bahrain GP result has led to the Milton Keynes-based squad starting the season with zero points for both the team and the drivers.
