Shanghai [China], April 19 : As Formula 1 makes its five-year comeback to China, Max Verstappen said he is prepared for "chaos" on the racetrack.
With just one 60-minute practice session before Friday's Sprint Qualifying session, the Chinese Grand Prix is the first Sprint weekend of the 2024 season, adding even more uncertainty to the sport's newest generation of vehicles. These cars have not been tested at the Shanghai International Circuit.
When most drivers took a tour around the track on Thursday, they saw that the circuit had seemingly been freshly painted rather than resurfaced. In reality, though, the track has received a bitumen surface treatment, in which the material is applied to the track in a fluid state to stop disintegration and remove dust.
"With the new cars, it will be a bit of an unknown. From the track side, it looks like they have repainted it, rather than resurfaced it," Verstappen said as quoted by Sky Sports.
"I don't know what that does to the grip of the track, so that's something we have to get on top of. It's the same for everybody but we just have to have a good FP1 and hopefully we don't have to finetune too much with the car. That will help hit the ground running for the rest of the weekend," he added.
With three victories from the first four races, Verstappen has started his hunt for a fourth consecutive drivers' championship. His most recent dominating run of victories was only cut short when a brake issue forced him to withdraw from the Australian Grand Prix.
Despite having a historically strong season and navigating through last year's Sprint weekends with relative ease, the Dutchman is concerned about the risk given the format's debut appearance in 2024.
"I think overall with the Sprint it's always a bit more of a question mark and always a bit more chaos involved, which I guess in a way is a good thing for F1," said Verstappen.
"From my side at the moment it's just quite unknown. We haven't driven here with these new cars so I don't really know how we are going to perform here. Time will tell and I'm not too worried about it," he added.
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