Max Verstappen and Red Bull sounding the alarm as McLaren close in
Following Lando Norris’ dominant win at the Dutch Grand Prix, Red Bull and Max Verstappen are sounding the alarm
Sunday was a matter of damage limitation for Max Verstappen at the Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix.
After Lando Norris rocketed by Verstappen at the close of Lap 17 Sunday, the Red Bull driver knew that he had to run his race. Which, in his words, was to bring home a second-place finish. Verstappen did just that, and while finishing 22 seconds behind Norris is certainly eye-catching, even with the McLaren driver picking up the bonus point for the fastest lap — which he did on the final lap of the race on worn hard tires — Verstappen only saw his lead over Norris in the Drivers’ Championship trimmed by eight points, from 78 to 70.
With nine race weekends to go, Norris still faces a substantial challenge to overcome that gap. If, hypothetically, Norris wins the nine remaining Grands Prix and the three F1 Sprint Races, that would add 249 points to his tally, bringing him to 474 on the season.
Given the depth of the F1 field this year, sweeping the season seems implausible. But for the sake of argument let’s assume he pulls it off.
Verstappen has 195 points at the moment, meaning if he were to finish second to Norris in each race — Grands Prix and F1 Sprint Races — that would add 183 points to his account, bringing his season total to 478.
Leaving him still four points ahead of Norris.
Even in this world where Norris and Verstappen go one-two the rest of the way, Norris would still need to pick up some additional bonus points for the fastest lap each week. Five, to be exact, to overcome that hypothetical four-point deficit to Verstappen as outlined above. That’s assuming Verstappen does not pick up any of his own, and in this world, you would have to imagine Red Bull would do everything they could to steal those bonus points, including having Sergio Pérez pit for softs in the closing stage of every race for the simple goal of picking that up for himself.
The Constructors’ Championship, however, is a different story.
After Sunday’s Dutch Grand Prix McLaren has pulled to within just 30 points of Red Bull at the front of the field, and using this graph from Formula1Points you can see how the Woking-based operation has slowly closed the margin to Red Bull at the front of the field:
McLaren has nine race weekends to close that gap.
When they left Miami, in the wake of Norris’ maiden F1 victory, McLaren had 124 points on the season, and they trailed Red Bull by 115 points.
Over the nine race weekends since, McLaren has outscored Red Bull 280-195. Overcoming the current 30-point gap is nowhere as difficult a task as it would be for Norris to overcome Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship.
Still, in the hours since the Dutch Grand Prix, Red Bull has been sounding the alarm about both races. Speaking with Motorsport following the race Sunday, Red Bull senior figure Dr. Helmut Marko noted that the team faces a challenge in both the Drivers’, and the Constructors’, from Norris and McLaren.
“So, as Max said before the summer break, the team has to work harder and must find improvements because like that his championship is in threat.”
When asked to clarify which championship he was referring to, Marko replied: “Both, both, both.”
Asked about Marko’s comments during Sunday’s FIA Press Conference, Verstappen echoed the sentiment of alarm.
“I think this weekend was just a bad weekend in general. So we need to understand that. But the last few races already, they haven’t really been fantastic,” said Verstappen. “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.”
The Red Bull driver then outlined the issues he is having with the RB20.
“I had pretty much the same balance from FP1 all the way to the race. I mean, the limitations are the same. So yeah, it’s just very hard to solve at the moment. Yeah, it just seems like we are too slow, but also quite bad on [tire degradation] at the moment,” described Verstappen. “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, of course, quickly try to improve.”`
While the calendar may offer some relief — the next two races are Monza and Azerbaijan, circuits where Red Bull locked out the front row in 2023 — 2024 is a different season, and Verstappen sounded unsure if things would change by the Italian Grand Prix.
“I don’t know. I mean, we just need to figure out our balance issues. I think that will already help a lot also with [tire degradation]. Of course, in Monza, a lot is new,” said Verstappen. “You know, tarmac, curbs, even the layout in Turn 1, 2. So also that we need to understand a bit more.
“But, yeah, we know that we have quite a bit of work to do.”