The change by Pirelli that could make Verstappen even harder to beat

The introduction of Pirelli’s new 18-inch tyres last year seemed to bring an understeer characteristic that Verstappen isn’t a fan of.

Combined with Red Bull’s 2022 car being overweight, Verstappen struggled to extract the most from the RB18, particularly in qualifying.

Pirelli have already confirmed that they have made changes to their front tyres for 2023 in a bid to reduce understeer.

Verstappen notoriously likes a car ‘on the nose’, with a pointer front-end meaning the rear is more unstable.

It’s a preference that makes him incredibly fast, and something most of his teammates - Sergio Perez, Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly - have struggled with.

Speaking at the launch of Red Bull’s 2023 F1 car - the RB19 - Verstappen believes the new tyres from Pirelli are “a little improvement”.

“Yeah, the big issue last year was not specifically the tyres, it was just the weight of the car,” he said. “It was very massively over and that creates a lazy behaviour on the front. Basically, once we started to get rid of that weight, the car became more agile.

“And that's how the car is gonna go quick, because I've never sat in a car with understeer which is fast in my life in any category.

“With the new tyres from Pirelli, I do think it's a little improvement. Of course, we only tested it fully in Abu Dhabi and we have to see it on every single track as well to see if it works everywhere.

“Because every tarmac and track condition, especially the weather, it influences a lot. But I'm confident that everything will be heading into the right direction.”

As Pirelli get ready for the new season, a number of teams have been testing for the Italian company.

Mercedes were in action last week at the Circuit Paul Ricard across two days of testing.

AlphaTauri took over on Friday and Saturday, testing Pirelli’s wet weather tyres.

This week, Mercedes and Aston Martin were at Jerez testing for Pirelli again.