Marc Priestley points to one race that will ‘completely swing’ Red Bull title battle

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After the Dutch Grand Prix, it is clear that Max Verstappen and Red Bull have a title battle on their hands in the final nine races of the 2024 Formula 1 season.

Lando Norris stormed to victory by a dominant 22.8 seconds while McLaren was close to achieving a one-two with Oscar Piastri, had the pair not suffered poor starts at the beginning of the race.

Team principal Andrea Stella felt their start problems compromised their races, given it is notoriously difficult to overtake at Zandvoort.

McLaren closed the gap to Red Bull by 30 points in the Constructors’ Championship with the win, while Norris is now only 70 points behind Verstappen in the battle for the Drivers’ title.

Given their current form and Red Bull searching for answers, it is likely that McLaren will continue to put in good results without the need to bring a significant upgrade package to stay ahead.

Former F1 mechanic Marc Priestley believes there will be one race that will be pivotal in the title battle between McLaren and Red Bull when speaking on his YouTube channel.

Marc Priestley tips the Singapore Grand Prix to be pivotal in the 2024 F1 title battle

Last year Red Bull showed dominant pace in all but one of the 22 races in the season: Singapore.

It was there that Carlos Sainz broke Verstappen’s unbeaten record of 10 races in succession, and became the only non-Red Bull driver to win a race in 2023.

Priestley expects Red Bull to encounter the same problems this year, after the RB20 showed it also suffers from the same problems as the RB19 in the slow corners.

“If you look at the races coming up, in a couple of races time we go to Singapore. That’s a circuit where Red Bull has consistently struggled at. Even last year, they were really dominant but could not find the pace in Singapore,” said Priestley.

“If they find themselves in fifth or sixth place with McLaren taking one and two, that completely swings the championship tally.”

How McLaren is beating Red Bull in the development race

McLaren have made significant inroads to improving their performance, notably with the addition of a brand new wind tunnel that came online last season.

Chief designer Rob Marshall has been impressed by the correlation between what McLaren put through the wind tunnel and how it translates into performance on track.

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Red Bull Racing from engine to Ford links

This means the team can bring upgrades to their car without the fear that it will cause an adverse effects, which is the opposite of what it happening at Red Bull.

Technical director Pierre Wache admitted that the main problem facing Red Bull is that their sim data does not match up with what is happening on the track, meaning they need to work backwards to figure out where they went wrong with their most recent upgrades.

Verstappen thinks they are fighting an issue that was not present on the car at the start of the year, which is complicating things for them in both their single lap and long run pace.