After a difficult Hungarian GP weekend for Max Verstappen and Red Bull, the team did not have a lot of time to recover as they headed to Spa for the Belgian GP this weekend. Verstappen finished the race at the Hungaroring in P5. The RB20 was not performing at its best and Red Bull made strategy errors which added to Verstappen’s frustrations.
After the race in Belgium, F1 will go into a three-week break. And Red Bull’s chief advisor Helmut Marko feels that the team desperately needs it. He says,
“We urgently need it. In the first three races we thought we were going to have a similar season to last year, but then suddenly there was the turnaround”
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Verstappen has repeatedly asked Red Bull to step up this season. He sees the McLaren and Mercedes cars improving with every race, and in terms of development, Red Bull is lagging massively. Marko adds,
“Max is not used to that and we are also not used enough to the fact that you have to fight hard with competitors.”
In Hungary, McLaren’s Lando Norris also closed the gap to Verstappen in the Championship standings. The Bristol-born driver is 76 points behind Verstappen after the race. In the Constructors’ Championship meanwhile, McLaren came closer to Red Bull; just 51 points behind the Milton-Keynes-based team.
Problems for Red Bull continue to mount. At the start of the season, internal power struggles were affecting the team’s image, but they had the fastest car on the track. Now, even that is not giving them respite.
What to Expect from Red Bull after the Summer Break?
Red Bull’s struggles have been ongoing for several race weekends, but Verstappen has managed to drag the car to victories, or at least, be in contention. Still, the 26-year-old has kept insisting that his team needs to wake up.
Red Bull brought a major upgrade package to Hungary, including a floor and different sidepod-engine covers. It was supposed to improve the RB20’s performance but ended up causing massive understeer in Verstappen’s car.
Rectifying changes ahead of the Belgian GP would be difficult for Red Bull, but heading into the summer break, the team would put its thinking caps on, and try to come up with a solution to have a stronger second half of the season.
Slow-speed corners and bumps are still the Achilles Heel for Red Bull’s RB20. A fix in the same department could do wonders for Verstappen’s Title defense hopes.
