Verstappen: Renault must have a really bad car!

Max Verstappen joked that Renault's 2019 car must be below-par amid reports that the French manufacturer's engine has hit the magical mark of 1000 bhp.

Renault's engine chief Remi Taffin recently told Auto Motor und Sport: "It's just certain performance peaks in qualifying. We can't deliver this performance constantly. It depends on many factors. For example the track and ambient temperatures."

Amid Red Bull's split with Renault to the Honda power units and Daniel Ricciardo's shock switch to the French marque, there has been plenty of focus on their fortunes, with Verstappen having taken two wins, while Renault's best finish so far is the Australian's sixth-place finish in Canada.

Reaching 1000bhp has been a subject of much speculation for many years as manufacturers look to push the boundaries of the V6 Hybrid ruleset.

When Renault's claim was put to Verstappen, he wryly replied: "Well, if they claim to have a thousand horsepower they have a really bad car!

"I think it's better to do the talking on the track than in the media anyway."

The claim was also put to Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas. The Brit said he had "no idea" what horsepower Mercedes' engine was capable of, a theme that the Finn expanded on.

Bottas added: "I asked the team – because we had some engine issues, we had some talks about the engine and I asked how much horsepower we had in qualifying and the engineers said they don't know, they don't actually know, so no one knows!"

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