Max Verstappen continues to put in extraordinary performances on an almost weekly basis despite three of Red Bull’s rivals being hot on the Dutchman’s toes. He has the lead in the Championship standing, as does Red Bull but they are far from being as comfortable as they were in 2023. A major factor, however, which continues to affect Red Bull is Team Principal Christian Horner‘s nonchalance.
The grid has closed up, and McLaren, Ferrari, and Mercedes are all close to the front now, which makes Verstappen’s job of winning harder than usual. Horner, however, isn’t worried because he feels that convergence in the third year of regulations is normal. Verstappen doesn’t agree with this.
As quoted by RacingNews365, he said,
“At the moment it’s a bit more difficult and I think we just have to be honest about that. We can say, ‘It’s normal’, but I don’t think it’s normal. “We have to keep working hard. If we think this is normal, people are going to overtake us.”
Great start to the weekend #AustrianGP pic.twitter.com/DW8yx80Fo4
— Max Verstappen (@Max33Verstappen) June 28, 2024
Red Bull needs major improvements to build a performance gap to its rivals again. McLaren in particular, has looked almost as fast (if not faster) in several races, but Verstappen keeps coming out on top because of his brilliance.
Max Verstappen highlights McLaren’s current superiority over Red Bull’s RB20
Since 2022, an opponent outclassing Red Bull or Verstappen has been rare. But in 2024, McLaren has done it time and time again. When it comes to their MCL38, it has proven to be a worthy competitor for race wins, which makes Verstappen wary.
“I think McLaren at the moment, they’re just very solid,” said Verstappen. “They’re good everywhere, every single track. I think you could see in Barcelona, they were very good at their tires. They could just push more on them compared to, I think, everyone else on the grid.”
That was a close Sprint qualifying between Lando Norris and Max Verstappen! Over the lap, Lando was losing ground and gaining it back over the lap in an effort to catch Max. The last two corners (below) are really cool to look at. Going into turn 9 Lando is 0.09s behind Max.… pic.twitter.com/ZjsMiEYRaZ
— Dr Obbs (@dr_obbs) June 28, 2024
With only single major upgrade package this year, McLaren has managed to become a frontrunner. They are giving Red Bull a run for its money in the Constructors’ Championship race. If things don’t change and the Woking-based team continues to progress, the tides of the Drivers’ Championship could also shift in favor of Lando Norris, who is just 69 points behind Verstappen.
