By Gura Garcia
Max Verstappen bets with great enthusiasm and considers that Monza was the lowest point of this Formula 1 season for Red Bullas the team is trying to make the necessary improvements to finish the 2024 season strongly and forcefully. The driver started the current campaign in the best possible way, even taking a 22-second advantage in the Bahrain Grand Prix from second place , but 6 months later, the reality is totally different and the energy drinks team lost the lead in the constructors’ championship and the drivers’ championship, where ‘Mad Max’ is number 1, is in danger.
In conversation with the Motorsport.com site in Singapore, Verstappen commented on the challenges he faced in Red Bull after starting the year so well. “At first I was also surprised, but if you look at what our problems were, then I understand it perfectly,” says the Dutchman. “At some point, we have gone in the wrong direction. The other teams have not yet addressed that specific point or have developed the car in a slightly different way. That is always difficult to evaluate.”
“At first I noticed that the feel was very different from last year’s car in terms of balance,” the Dutchman explained. “At that time our car was still much faster than the others, or maybe I should say the others were not as good then, so in that phase we could still compensate for our difficulties. In the following races it got worse and worse. There came a time when our car was very difficult to drive and, at the same time, the others were making real progress.”
Verstappen has stated on several occasions that he considers that the front and rear of the car They are not connected, which was a visible deviation from the car he had to drive last year. At the car’s launch in Milton Keynes last winter, Verstappen revealed that he was quite surprised by the marked changes when he first saw the sketches of the car called RB20, which now raises the question of whether or not the concept change was a error in retrospect: “I don’t think you can say from the outside what went wrong, so that’s not the question,” Verstappen dismisses. “What the car looks like on the outside is not the question.”
Has Red Bull found the beginning of a solution?
For Red Bull, its main objective is to put an end to its bad streak and progress step by step to once again be the leaders of Formula 1 as in previous years. According to Verstappen, that upward trajectory has already begun with the improvement of the soil in Baku.
The team only mentioned “subtle changes” in the subsoil in Baku, which demonstrated an improvement in the car and which was clearly seen in the Singapore Grand Prix with a Dutchman reaching second place. Verstappen is hopeful that this specific update is the beginning of a solution to all the problems at Red Bull: “Yes, he felt better. It was already a good step for us. I think we’re moving in the right direction now, it will take some time. You can’t turn around something like that in a week or two. But I think the team was also satisfied with what they saw in Baku.”
It is still not enough to compete with the British Lando Norris and McLaren for race victoriesbut Red Bull will bring another package of updates to the United States Grand Prix in Austin later this month. “I hope we can continue taking good steps from here.”
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