Max Verstappen’s response as ‘on the limit’ Red Bull roll out crucial upgrades for Hungary

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen.

Max Verstappen believes the Red Bull RB20 felt better to drive at the start of the season, but is confident upgrades will rectify recent issues.

Red Bull’s outright dominance of F1 has come to an end in the second quarter of 2024, with the Dutch driver ‘only’ winning three of the last six races as Mercedes, McLaren, and Ferrari have stepped forward to challenge.

Max Verstappen: Red Bull need more performance

Having started the season in the same untouchable fashion as Red Bull enjoyed throughout the entirety of 2023, the progress made by the team’s rivals has upstaged Red Bull’s own upgrades as the RB20 has slipped back into the pack as the season progressed.

At the British Grand Prix, Verstappen slipped down to fifth place on pure pace in the first half of the race as the McLarens and Mercedes thrived in the changeable conditions, with a nailed-on tyre strategy bringing Verstappen back into play to contend for the victory in the closing stages.

Hints over recent races have suggested F1’s outright fastest car may be the McLaren MCL38, with Mercedes and Red Bull also capable of contending for that honour dependent on the individual race track.

Red Bull has rolled out a big upgrade package for the Hungarian Grand Prix, a track that has some of the characteristics the RB20 hasn’t enjoyed so far this year – slower-speed, tighter radius corners, with a demand for attacking the kerbs at some of them.

The upgrades include a new engine cover and resculpted sidepods, changes to the rear corner wheel bodywork, a new profile front wing, and revised front lower wishbone forward leg shrouds.

It’s a critical package aimed at bringing Red Bull back into a more comfortable position and, speaking to the media on Thursday, Max Verstappen spoke about the feelings he’s recently experienced from the car.

“I think it’s just the way we set up the car, maybe also what we get back from the simulator, all these kinds of things need to be probably a bit better,” he said, when asked about how things had changed through the second quarter of the season.

“Plus we just need more performance because, naturally, if you have a car that has better performance, it becomes a better car to drive as well because you don’t need to push it over or close to the limit.

“If you look at it, realistically, other teams have made bigger steps. That’s very clear. But I know that my team is pushing as hard as they can to find performance.

“It’s just very complicated, these cars. Some bits might be also just in the setup itself but, at the same time, we need to find more performance. As the leading team, we have less time in the wind tunnel and stuff. I’m not using that as an excuse, because I don’t want to think like that.

“But the reality is that we have less time, we try to do the best we can.”

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Verstappen was referring to the aerodynamic testing restrictions sliding scale which changes every six months – the leading team is given the fewest hours to work in the wind tunnel and carry out CFD modelling for new components, with the available hours increasing for teams on a sliding scale down the order of the Constructors’ Championship.

Given that Red Bull started the season in a similarly dominant fashion to last year, does Verstappen believe the closing of the gap is down to missteps from his team, or that the other teams have simply unlocked more performance from their own machines?

“I think it’s two things. Because, at the beginning of the year, I felt actually really good with the car – probably even more natural than the year before for me to drive the car, which was a positive thing,” he said.

“But then, yeah, let’s say after a few races with the competition closing up the car, we just had weekends which were a bit messy and a bit difficult to find the sweet spot, where in the first few races we didn’t really have a lot of issues and everything just seemed to click a bit more naturally.

“Other teams have shown that you can make big chunks. Naturally, in the past, when you’re the leading team and you’re doing very well, I think it’s quite normal to make smaller steps.

“But now it’s up to us again to try and find more performance. And that’s what we try to do.”

Asked whether this has led to more risk-taking on the setup side of things, Verstappen said being pushed harder overall as a team leads to greater jeopardy.

“We’ve always been trying to optimise things and, if your car is not the dominant force anymore, you have to try and… I wouldn’t say overdrive it, but you have to try and be more on the limit,” he said.

“Then, of course, it’s easier to have little moments or it’s all a bit more peaky, a bit easier to have difficulties, I would say, but now it’s up to us to try and make it a bit easier for ourselves by bringing upgrades and, hopefully, the car performs a bit better.”

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