Martin Brundle says Max Verstappen sent Red Bull a message in ‘capital letters’ during Dutch Grand Prix

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Max Verstappen saw his run of three consecutive wins at the Dutch Grand Prix come to an end on Sunday. Verstappen was unbeaten on home soil since the event returned to the calendar in 2021, but Lando Norris halted that streak.

Norris produced one of the best qualifying laps of the season so far to take pole position ahead of Verstappen by around three and a half tenths. The Red Bull driver managed to get ahead into turn one, but his lead was short-lived.

He lost it on lap 18 as Norris got through with the aid of DRS. And from that point onwards, he simply couldn’t live with the pace of the upgraded McLaren.

With a damage-limiting second place, Verstappen still holds a 70-point lead over the Englishman heading into the Italian GP this weekend. A turnaround of truly historic proportions would be required.

The 26-year-old will still almost certainly win this year’s world championship. But as it stands, McLaren will enter 2025 as firm favourites, with very few changes to the regulations.

Red Bull are also on course to surrender their constructors’ championship crown. Norris and Oscar Piastri have now whittled their lead down to 30 points and it seems only a matter of time before they get ahead.

Max Verstappen stopped pushing flat out to warn Red Bull, says Martin Brundle

Writing his post-race column for Sky Sports F1, ex-driver Martin Brundle raised a theory about the world champion. Norris’ winning margin was nearly 23 seconds, the largest for a driver not named Verstappen since 2021.

However, Brundle ‘suspects’ that Verstappen stopped ‘wringing the neck’ of his RB20 once he realised that he couldn’t catch Norris. At that point, a larger gap actually served him well.

It showed Red Bull that they have ‘urgent’ problems to address if they’re to stop McLaren’s charge. The team have introduced a number of upgrades in recent months without making a noticeable improvement.

One journalist claimed during the summer break that Verstappen is ‘bothered’ by Red Bull’s regression, potentially putting his future in doubt. This has been a greater concern than the off-track in-fighting at Milton Keynes.

“Once Max knew he had no answer to Lando I suspect he didn’t totally wring the neck of the Red Bull thereafter,” Brundle wrote. “All the better to give the team a firm message in underlined capital letters that they have some serious and urgent performance work to do.”

Lando Norris makes Max Verstappen point people ‘hate’ to hear after Dutch Grand Prix

Zandvoort was arguably the first truly alarming race for Verstappen and Red Bull this season. Norris received a bit of luck en route to victory in Miami, while the team put their Monaco woes down to the unique nature of the circuit.

A collision ended his battle for victory in Austria, and he nearly snatched the win in Great Britain a week later. Norris says Verstappen was rapid in Hungary too, even though people ‘hate’ to hear amid the focus on McLaren’s team orders.

The Dutchman has always been a perfectionist, but he’s been complaining about the handling of his car with increasing regularity in recent races. Sergio Perez has also been struggling to tame it.

Verstappen says Red Bull are nursing a new problem but they can’t pinpoint its source. Until they manage to do so, it will remain difficult to drive over both a single lap and a full race distance.