Max Verstappen realised ‘early on’ that his Red Bull would be ‘very difficult to drive’

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Max Verstappen has been embroiled in a championship battle with Lando Norris in the last few races, after hitting trouble with his RB20.

Red Bull started the season where they left off in 2023 with the dominant RB19, which became the car with the highest win percentage (95%) at the hands of Max Verstappen after he won 18 Grands Prix and the team won 21 out of a possible 22 races.

The RB20 is an evolution of that successful car and an aggressive take on the current regulations, but it gave the team a platform to develop as rivals caught up.

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McLaren has been the most surprising given Lando Norris finished the Chinese GP 20 seconds behind Verstappen in second, now he is effectively replicating those margins in the MCL36 after Red Bull hit a development wall.

Verstappen, who has not won a race since the Spanish GP in June, knew early on that 2024 could be a challenge when speaking to Autosport.

Max Verstappen explains how Red Bull found it difficult to ‘compensate’ for their problems

The RB20 is known for being one of the most difficult cars to drive, as evidenced by Sergio Perez’s struggles during the season which nearly led to him losing his drive before the summer break.

Verstappen said during the Dutch GP weekend that Red Bull is now fighting a problem that was not present on the car earlier in the season, making it difficult for them to trace the root cause.

Red Bull has been testing parts back-to-back in the last few races to make progress, although Perez’s late crash in Baku with Carlos Sainz caused a significant setback in their learning.

Verstappen believes Red Bull was caught out at the start of the season by their own pace, which made it difficult for them to know if they were going wrong.

“Early on I realised that the feeling was very different from last year’s car in terms of balance,” said Verstappen.

“At that time our car was still a lot quicker than the others, or maybe I should say that the others were not so good back then, so at that stage we could still compensate for our difficulties.

“In the races after that it got worse and worse. At one point our car was just very difficult to drive and at the same time the others made real progress.”

Helmut Marko exposes ‘factor’ hurting Red Bull in title fight with McLaren

Another problem facing Red Bull is the inconsistency of Perez, who has not finished on the podium since China or the top five since the Miami GP.

The Mexican is currently eighth in the Drivers’ standings with 144 points which is 187 points behind Verstappen, which puts Perez in breach of his current agreement with Red Bull.

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McLaren has extracted the most from their car and is currently still holding back some upgrades, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri taking five race wins between them.

Helmut Marko believes McLaren’s strong driver pairing is the main ‘factor’ hurting Red Bull in their title fight, while Jaques Villeneuve has warned Perez that he must perform in the final six races to keep his seat.