Max Verstappen had ‘a Good Time’ During Punishment

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen revealed that he had a “good time” while serving his ‘punishment’ of mandatory FIA community service over the winter break.

The Dutchman was on the receiving end the penalty for his explosive confrontation with Esteban Ocon after the Brazilian GP.

His first day of punishment was served at the Formula E race in Morocco. All he had to do all day was observe the stewards in the office.

“It was not that bad. I had a nice day in Marrakesh. I sat with the stewards all day long,” the Dutchman said to De Telegraaf.

“Vitantonio Liuzzi was also there, so we talked a bit about karting and the past. I entertained myself as well.

“If you have to go, you might as well make the best of it,” said the 21-year old. His next course of action was to travel to Geneva, for an important FIA steward meeting.

“All the stewards from around the world were there, and I even saw Jens Marquardt and Andy Priaulx, which was good to meet them. There’s nothing wrong with that,” he continued.

Max Verstappen was asked to summarise his takeaways from the community service. However, he simply smiled and said: “I just had a good time.”

“I also saw Formula E in real life. I heard how the stewards think about things, where usually I see them for ten minutes. This time it was ten hours.”

Moving on to the subject of the 2019 Red Bull-Honda, Verstappen confessed that the team have barely scratched the surface in terms of performance. However, his initial analysis and impression was that the car is “not bad”.

“We do not have much to say right now. We just have to make sure the car is fast,” he said.

The Dutch driver was also quizzed on the new front wings. The purpose of the wing’s design is to make overtaking easier in 2019. However he was not convince and answered: “Actually, it is just 15 million euros flushed down the drain.”

“They thought we would lose a lot of downforce, but that’s not the case at all. You can already see the laptimes here. We are already very fast,”.