Slow start prompts ‘concern’ for Red Bull, Max Verstappen: Report
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SAKHIR – Red Bull’s early-season struggles amid set-up concerns have the team scrambling for ways to improve, after four-time Formula One world champion Max Verstappen finished in sixth place on April 13 in the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Everything from balance issues with the set-up on the cars to pit stops and Friday practice sessions all have come into focus.
“The concern is great,” Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko told Sky Germany, reported The Athletic.
“Improvements must come in the near future so that he has a car with which he can win again. We need to create a foundation with a car so that he can fight for the world championship.”
Verstappen had a dominant 2023 season, winning 19 of the 22 grands prix and finishing on the podium 21 times.
In 2024, he won nine times in 24 races but Red Bull relinquished the team constructors’ championship to McLaren.
That came, according to The Athletic, as Red Bull encountered balance issues with the cars that are continuing this season. The fix, reportedly, is a long-term one.
F1 analysts like Sky’s Ralf Schumacher, who won six races across 11 F1 seasons, believe Verstappen could go as far as to leave Red Bull if the improvements are not forthcoming.
Verstappen is third in the drivers standings after four races, eight points behind leader Lando Norris and five behind Oscar Piastri, both of McLaren.
While Verstappen is under contract until 2028 with Red Bull, Marko has said there are opt-out clauses.
In the constructors’ championship standings, McLaren have 151 points, Mercedes have 93 and Red Bull are next at 71.
McLaren, meanwhile, seem to be a much more cohesive camp.
Norris was self-critical after suffering setbacks in Bahrain at the weekend, but McLaren principal Andrea Stella said the driver was being unfair on himself and taking the blame for the team.
Norris said he had been “clueless on track” after qualifying at Sakhir and, after finishing third in a race won from pole by Piastri, that he made too many mistakes.
Stella told reporters he admired Norris’ open approach, wearing his heart on his sleeve.
“It is relatively unique how visible he is, how open he is,” said the Italian, who worked with seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher at Ferrari.
“He is quite self-critical. Other champions in the past, might go on about the problem being elsewhere. It is something important that I admire about Lando, and which makes me very privileged and lucky as team principal, that he absorbs the blame and points it at himself.
“He raises his hand, absolving the team entirely; ‘It was me, not the team’. Which is entirely inaccurate.
“There were things we did that made Lando’s life less easy. We know what they were technically.”
REUTERS
