"Lambiase and Verstappen should be able to see that"

3 November 2020 at 10:00

GPblog.com

Christijan Albers has argued that Max Verstappen and his head engineer Gianpiero Lambiase might have already known that they had a flat tyre last Sunday. The former Formula 1 driver stated that the light should always come on quickly when the tyre pressure changes. The light has either not been noticed or has not come on.

"You can see that his handlebar is pulling slightly to the left. In fact, the tyre pressure sensors should then sound an alarm. Lambiase and Max should then be able to see that. I think the tyre is already deflating there," said Albers the day after the Grand Prix at the Imola circuit in the De Telegraaf podcast. He does believe, however, that a piece of carbon could have caused the sudden puncture.

Damage Bottas

Verstappen said he was quite satisfied with the speed of the RB16 on the Italian track. However, according to Albers the pace of Red Bull is distorted. "You have a Bottas driving with damage to his floor. You lose so much downforce with that. You can count on him losing a serious amount of downforce. Then the car is significantly slower."

Lewis Hamilton may have suffered in third place for quite some time, but he still managed to squeeze out strong lap times. "Then you see Hamilton's Hammertimes after a pit stop. Then he knows such lap times that the others are not spectators. Bottas and Max then have to check it out. It was fun for Max and I understand that he says he felt he was close, but quite frankly Bottas just had problems," Albers said.

Hamilton impresses

The only conclusion Albers can draw is that the difference between Mercedes and Red Bull in 2020 has not narrowed much in recent weeks. "If Lewis is really going to push, there is still a huge gap between them. Those are incredible blows that Red Bull will get," said the former driver of Minardi and others.