Red Bull situation ‘serious’ after worrying setup choice Max Verstappen made at the Dutch Grand Prix

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Red Bull Racing knew going into the Formula 1 summer break that they faced a serious challenge from McLaren for the rest of the season, but may not have quite anticipated the advantage Andrea Stella’s team had created.

Lando Norris won the Dutch Grand Prix by an incredible margin from Max Verstappen to narrow the gap at the top of the Drivers’ Championship to 70 points.

It would take an incredible run of results from the McLaren driver to overturn that deficit – although winning every race, achieving every fastest lap and winning the final three Sprint Races of the season would be enough.

However, the Constructors’ Championship is a much more pressing concern for Christian Horner with the gap now down to just 30 points.

There’s nothing more that Verstappen can do but even when Oscar Piastri has a disappointing race, he’s still beating Sergio Perez.

Red Bull have had an incredible advantage over the rest of the grid ever since the current regulations were introduced, but their performance has plateaued.

A report from The Race has now identified one setup choice Verstappen made during the race weekend at Zandvoort that highlights how serious the situation is.

A common theme throughout this year has been teams delivering new upgrade packages but failing to see the benefits on track.

Ferrari were Red Bull’s closest rival until a major upgrade brought to the Spanish Grand Prix created such intense levels of porpoising that they could no longer extract the full potential from their car.

Verstappen may be experiencing a similar issue in terms of stagnation on his RB20.

So much so, that he reverted to the original floor he was using at the beginning of the season rather than using any upgraded parts Red Bull have developed over the course of the year.

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Max Verstappen using old floor at the Dutch Grand Prix after being defeated by Lando Norris

Red Bull decided to split the setups of their two cars at Zandvoort as they looked to gather data for the upcoming races.

It meant Perez was using a newer floor specification that theoretically should have been worth 0.2 seconds per lap, although this wasn’t reflected in his performance during the race.

In the report from The Race, they believe Verstappen’s choice to run the ‘old, less performant’ floor is a sign of how ‘serious’ the situation is within the team.

The triple world champion and his father Jos Verstappen have been critical of the progress Red Bull have made this year and have recognised for some time that a title that appeared to be a foregone conclusion earlier in the year no longer seems so likely.

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Martin Brundle explains why he thinks Max Verstappen was so slow at the Dutch Grand Prix

It has to be said that even though McLaren have an advantage over Red Bull now, Verstappen’s performance was still extraordinary.

He did a phenomenal job to outqualify Piastri on Saturday before getting the jump on Norris going into the first corner to take the lead.

Verstappen’s ability to then get out of DRS range gave his home support real hope that he could go on to win the race.

However, once his tyres started to degrade, he was no match for Norris who then took full advantage of the clean air in front of him.

Martin Brundle has a theory as to why Verstappen was more than 20 seconds behind Norris at the end of the race.

He suggests McLaren may not have the advantage they think they do and instead the Dutchman is trying to make sure everyone working behind the scenes at Red Bull is tirelessly trying to find a solution for why they’ve lost an important advantage.