Max Verstappen, the reigning Formula 1 champion, has expressed growing concerns over Red Bull’s performance after being decisively outpaced by Lando Norris at the Dutch Grand Prix. The British driver not only took pole position by a commanding 0.35 seconds but also overtook Verstappen during the race and cruised to victory with a staggering 22-second margin. This marks a significant downturn for Verstappen, who started the season with seven wins in the first 10 races but has now gone five races without a victory.
Verstappen admitted that something has gone seriously wrong with his RB20 car as the season has progressed. “The whole weekend has been the same,” he said. “I had pretty much the same balance from FP1 all the way to the race. I mean, the limitations are the same. So it’s just very hard to solve at the moment.”
The Dutchman pointed to the car’s lack of speed and increased tire degradation as key issues, a surprising shift given Red Bull’s historical strength in tire management. “It just seems like we are too slow, but also quite bad on deg 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,” Verstappen explained.
The struggles have not only hurt Verstappen’s race pace but also his one-lap performance, making it difficult to compete with the front-runners. “It’s just not a connected balance, front or rear. It wasn’t there in the first few races. But something in the car has made it more difficult to drive and it’s very hard to pinpoint where that is coming from at the moment,” he added.
Despite these setbacks, Verstappen still holds a substantial 70-point lead in the championship. However, Norris’s victory and fastest lap at Zandvoort cut into that lead by eight points, raising questions about whether Red Bull can regain its dominant form.
Verstappen remains cautiously optimistic but acknowledges the need for urgent improvements. “I think this weekend was just a bad weekend in general. So we need to understand that,” he said. “But the last few races, they haven’t really been fantastic. So that, I think in a sense, was already a bit alarming. But we know that we don’t need to panic. We are just trying to improve the situation, and that’s what we are working on, but F1 is very complicated.”
As the season unfolds, the pressure is on Red Bull to identify and fix the issues plaguing the RB20. With rivals like McLaren and Norris gaining momentum, the team will need to act quickly to prevent further slippage in their championship campaign.
Photo from Max Verstappen Instagram
