Ted Kravitz shares what he’s saw in Max Verstappen’s Baku data that should give him hope

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Max Verstappen appears to be limping to his fourth Formula 1 Drivers’ Championship right now after another disappointing race.

Red Bull lost the lead in the Constructors’ Championship after Oscar Piastri secured victory with a mesmerising performance.

Sergio Perez was on course for his best performance since the beginning of the season before his late collision with Carlos Sainz.

It cost the Mexican a much-needed and thoroughly deserved podium but arguably more importantly, they lost a minimum of 12 points in the battle against McLaren in the team standings.

Max Verstappen made changes to his car before qualifying that made his car more difficult to drive and he was never in contention for a podium finish.

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Even more disappointingly, Verstappen finished behind his closest rival in the championship Lando Norris despite the fact the Brit started the race in 15^th.

Verstappen pitted for soft tyres just as the crash happened and while he didn’t lose any positions as a result, it prevented him from taking the fastest lap point away from Norris.

However, speaking on Sky Sports F1 during the race, Ted Kravitz believes he spotted something that Verstappen can take away as a positive after the race.

The Dutchman was complaining on the radio about his car’s performance but Kravitz looked at the data on the hard tyre and thought it looked much better than his performance suggested.

Ted Kravitz spots hard tyre Max Verstappen data that Red Bull will take positives from

Verstappen came on the team radio during the race and simply said: “My brakes are not working.”

Commentating on the race, Karun Chandhok said: “Yeah, so that was it that we saw there at [turn] 15, he didn’t get the retardation he wanted behind Norris and ended up going through the inside the apex of 15.

“He’s really not a happy bunny is he Verstappen at the moment? Where are we now, 14 seconds off the lead, 12 seconds off his teammate?”

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While reporting from the pit lane, Kravitz added: “Yeah, I’ve just been studying Verstappen’s lap times, so while he’s had problems with his brakes, he’s actually been much happier on his hard tyres than he was on the mediums.

“But because he’s been stuck behind the one-stoppers or the late stoppers we should say of Albon and Norris, he’s completely detached now from Sergio Perez and Charles Leclerc in their fight with Oscar Piastri out front.

“So, even if Perez was in a position to try and help him out as his championship-leading teammate, it’s going to be so difficult now after losing so much lap time and total race time.”

Verstappen faced ‘crazy’ problem with his car during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend

Perez and Verstappen have known for months that the RB20 has had some fundamental issues that need solving.

Verstappen’s talent appears to have been the only thing preventing him from dropping down the order like his teammate since Miami.

He’s not won any of the last seven races and only has two podiums in that time and Red Bull are now rushing to find a solution to what’s going wrong.

Verstappen faced a crazy issue earlier in the race weekend in Baku but the changes they made for the Grand Prix didn’t make a difference.

The silver lining for the Dutchman is that Norris hasn’t been able to punish his disappointing results.