Sunday’s Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix proved that having a race winner other than Max Verstappen doesn’t automatically make for an exciting race at the front. There were only two real passes for the lead: once on the first lap when Verstappen blitzed past the McLaren of Lando Norris, and then once more on lap 18 when Norris got Verstappen back. Luckily, backmarkers and midfielders kept the race mildly interesting, but Norris’ 22-second lead over the reigning champ proves something’s amiss at Red Bull. Verstappen didn’t waste any time sounding off the alarm immediately after the race, admitting that “something has been going wrong lately with the car.”
Speaking to Motorsport.com, the three-time F1 champion explained that the development of the RB20 throughout the season has hurt its balance. As a result, the car’s pace isn’t just slower than that of its rivals, but it’s also severely affected tire degradation—something which used to be a major strength of Red Bull.
“It’s very hard to pinpoint where that is coming from at the moment. And that is then hurting, of course, our one-lap performance, but also our long-run,” Verstappen told Motorsport.com. “It just seems like we are too slow, but also quite bad on degradation at the moment. That’s a bit weird because I think the last few years normally we’ve been quite good on that.
“So, something has been going wrong lately with the car that we need to understand and we need to quickly try to improve. It’s just not a connected balance, front or rear,” he added.
Verstappen hasn’t won a Grand Prix since Barcelona—back in June, five races ago. Since then, Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton has won two races, while George Russell, Oscar Piastri, and Norris have won one apiece. The Dutchman is still leading the drivers’ championship with a comfortable margin of 70 points over Norris (295 versus 225), and Red Bull still leads McLaren but the gap is much smaller there: 434 versus 404. Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez has done a poor job defending his team in the constructors’ championship, though the Mexican scored his best finishing position in Zandvoort, placing 6th.
This year marked the first time Verstappen was defeated on home soil since the pinnacle of motorsport returned to the Netherlands in 2021. It was a similar situation back in June at the Austrian Grand Prix, when Mercedes and Russell managed to steal the limelight from the bulls on their home turf. With two embarrassing losses in just two months, perhaps Red Bull will feel the pressure to turn things around.
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