Jos Verstappen unimpressed with Red Bull after Max Verstappen’s Dutch Grand Prix struggles

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Max Verstappen was left trailing Lando Norris by over 20 seconds when he finished in second for the Dutch Grand Prix.

It was an unusual margin for Red Bull to lose a race given their total dominance of Formula 1 in the last two seasons, while Max Verstappen is now winless in five races having not won a race since the Spanish Grand Prix in June.

Verstappen believes the team is now fighting a problem with their car that was not there at the start of the season, owing to their most recent upgrades fitted to the RB20.

His father, Jos Verstappen, was left unimpressed by Red Bull when speaking to De Telegraf. Given their struggles in the race, now both championships look under threat from Lando Norris and McLaren.

Jos Verstappen unimpressed by Red Bull’s issues

Red Bull is having to work backwards to try and understand where it went wrong with its recent upgrade packages, with Verstappen reverting to older-spec parts for the race following testing on Friday.

Jos Verstappen believes his son knew that Red Bull would struggle and now expects the second half of the season to be “really difficult” for the team.

“The fact that you have to go back to the car from the beginning of this year says enough. They just don’t have it right here at the moment. I think they should take a good look in the mirror here,” said Verstappen.

“Max knew this was coming. He simply had no chance here. This way, it will be really difficult for the rest of this year. Max is doing everything he can, but does not have the material to finish it off. It was already exceptional that he qualified second.”

Martin Brundle believes Max Verstappen slowed on purpose for ‘factory hurry up’

Norris finished the race 22.8 seconds ahead of Verstappen, meaning he almost had a pit stop in hand before he crossed the line.

The McLaren driver went on to set the fastest lap of the race on the final lap, enabling him to take a maximum of 26 points.

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When analysing why the lead was so large, Martin Brundle believed Verstappen was slowing down on purpose to make it look worse and to give the factory a ‘hurry up’ knowing he was not going to beat Norris.

Without the experience of Adrian Newey to improve their chances, the technical team led by Pierre Wache will face a lot of pressure in the next few races to rectify their problems and get them back on course to defending their titles.