Although Max Verstappen only lost three World Championship points to title rival Lando Norris on Sunday in Baku, there is still a hangover mood at Red Bull after the Azerbaijan Grand Prix: “It is frustrating, especially when you look at where Lando qualified, that we did not beat him today,” says Red Bull team boss Christian Horner: “At least he did not score any major points.”
Motorsport advisor Helmut Marko is also worried after the race: His protégé was stuck in the DRS train behind Alex Albon for a long time on Sunday and lost a lot of time there, although he could have driven “over a second” faster, Marko explains to ServusTV: “Due to the DRS situation, he couldn’t get past, and that drove us into Norris’ arms. But in general, our speed was too slow for Max.”
Although Verstappen did show fast laps in between, “he couldn’t drive it continuously. Then we wanted to go for the fastest lap at the end, but that went wrong again because of this accident,” says Marko, referring to the late VSC phase after the crash between Carlos Sainz and the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez.
“Max couldn’t do that at all”
The fact that the Mexican had Verstappen under control the whole weekend until his accident does not surprise the man from Graz: “Both drove with a different set-up. Checo’s set-up worked, he was one to three seconds behind Leclerc over the entire race distance. Max couldn’t do that at all,” the man from Graz revealed to Sky.
“As soon as it came within one or two seconds, the brakes were overheating after one or two laps. The tire wear was much higher. Theoretically, there wasn’t much difference, but in practice it had a massive impact,” said Marko, defending his world champion. Team boss Horner echoed the same sentiment: “I think we may have built something into Max’s car that doesn’t seem to work so well, and it also damaged the tires quite a bit when he was battling in this group for so long.”
While Perez found a good rhythm and a good set-up, Verstappen did not feel comfortable in the car during the race either: “I think there will be a big investigation afterwards to determine what the differences were between the two cars, which are actually quite subtle. But he just wasn’t as happy as Checo today. So we have to look at that and understand it,” says Horner.
Verstappen regrets changes: “Like a go-kart”
Verstappen himself also takes responsibility for this: “I think we simply paid the price for the changes we made before qualifying yesterday,” says the world champion – a decision that made the car “just really difficult to drive” but which “our side” of the garage decided: “We win and lose as a team. We thought it was a good direction, but in the end it wasn’t.”
Instead, his car jumped around too much and sometimes felt “like a go-kart. There was always a wheel in the air on every axle, in all the slow corners,” Verstappen revealed to Sky, and explained: “Then of course you have no grip at all. That was actually my problem. Then of course I also slid a lot and then you built up a lot more tire temperature, and on a track like here in Baku you can’t do that.”
Why Verstappen was even lucky
It’s no wonder that Verstappen’s conclusion on Sunday is not rosy: “I mean, if you look at my race, everything was probably just the worst-case scenario.” At least Verstappen escaped a subsequent penalty for overtaking under VSC after crossing the finish line and got away with a warning from the stewards. Seen in this light, motorsport advisor Marko also thinks: “So, considering all that, I’d say we only lost three points in the drivers’ championship, that’s still lucky.”
However, the situation with regard to the World Championship is of course by no means satisfactory for a team spoiled by success like Red Bull: Especially when it comes to the Constructors’ Championship, whose lead Marko’s men finally had to give up in Baku, the Graz native is under no illusions: “To be honest: yes,” is Marko’s answer to the question of whether he has already mentally given up on the Team World Championship.
But the Austrian at least has the faint hope that McLaren could once again get in its own way as the season progresses: “The positive thing is that Piastri is very close to Lando in terms of points. So as far as team or papaya order is concerned, there will not be any clarity any time soon,” believes the Red Bull advisor.
Red Bull and the big trembling before Singapore
When it comes to the drivers’ championship for Verstappen, however, the team needs to be more active in the events than was possible recently: “We need to find speed and the car needs to be easier to set up. But we are confident, with what we have seen here, that we can do it and that we can win this drivers’ championship on our own,” explains Marko, who thinks: “It’s going in the right direction.”
One of the reasons for the confidence is the positive feedback after the underbody change: “The overall behavior is better,” Verstappen confirms despite the frustrating outcome for him on Sunday, and explains in relation to the “good step” that his team has taken in this regard: “I had more connection to the car again. Unfortunately, we lost that again with the changes we made.”
So the bottom line is that the lead over Norris is 59 points, with seven races still to go: “So yes, I think the lead is still good,” says Verstappen. But he does not want to see parallels to his first World Championship season in 2021, when Mercedes star Lewis Hamilton caught up with the Dutchman in the final spurt of the season: “No, because in 2021 it was really only between two drivers, we were first and second in most races, the rest were far behind.”
This year it is very different, although Verstappen admits that there is something good about the fact that the many different winners of the last races in the chasing field are taking points away from each other: “That is certainly the case, but of course I still don’t like it when I always only finish sixth myself. We have to get a bit better, but I think we have already shown that today, for example with Checo, who was a bit happier that the car performed a bit better.”
If he doesn’t want to come under further pressure in the World Championship, Verstappen will have to put that into practice on the track next weekend in Singapore – no easy task, as even in the dominant 2023 year, Singapore was the only track on which Red Bull had to admit defeat to the competition. So it’s no wonder that Marko is already worried about the trip to the Asian metropolis: “I’m afraid we won’t be able to make a step forward before Austin. So we still have to survive Singapore.”
Red Bull’s mission is also made more difficult by the consequences of the Perez-Sainz collision in Baku: “We have to see how much damage the Checo has suffered, that is, how many parts do we actually have?” says Marko, and reveals: “We had planned a few things, smaller ones, for Singapore, but this crash means the situation has to be completely reassessed.” Just as after Singapore, we will certainly be looking at the World Championship standings again – it remains to be seen how big Verstappen’s points lead will be then…
Source: www.sport.de
