Max Verstappen says Red Bull need luck to win every race

BARCELONA – Max Verstappen on Thursday returned to the scene of his maiden Formula One victory and sought to

play down talk of Red Bull becoming the first team to win every race in a season.

The Dutchman claimed his first win as a teenager on his Red Bull debut in the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix, after Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, the two championship-leading Mercedes drivers, collided on the opening lap.

Verstappen, now a two-time world champion, leads this season’s title race by 39 points from teammate Sergio Perez, with Red Bull dominating. The 25-year-old has won four of six races, including last weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix, with Perez taking the other two.

Their imperious consistency has raised the prospect of a unique sweep, despite Perez’s lapse in Monaco. There, he crashed in qualifying, started from the back of the grid and failed to score a point.

Speaking ahead of Sunday’s race at the Circuit de Catalunya, Verstappen was asked about his win, his teammate’s mishap and its impact on the title battle between the duo.

“That’s Monaco – it can bite you. I’ve been in that position myself. But now, from my point of view, it doesn’t change anything,” he said.

“I know it’s a very long championship and you need to be very consistent. You can barely afford mistakes, especially when it’s one team, one opponent, really.

“And at the moment, it looks like ‘best case you win’ and ‘worst case you’re second’ so you can’t really lose too many points like that.”

He added that he plans to “keep grinding every single weekend”.

But, when asked if Red Bull can win every race – something that has never been done – he said it was possible, but unlikely.

“How it looks like, at the moment, we can, but that’s very unlikely to happen,” he said. “There are always things that go wrong, you have a retirement or whatever.

“But, purely on pace, at the moment it looks like (it is possible).

“But we’ll always get to tracks where maybe it doesn’t work out exactly, or whatever, bad luck in qualifying, you make your own mistakes.”

McLaren, with Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna, won all but one race in 1988 when Gerhard Berger denied them the 100 per cent record with victory at Monza for Ferrari.

Mercedes at the height of their dominance between 2014 and 2021 lost some races every year, with a best of 19 wins out of 21 in 2016.

Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari were similarly unable to keep others off the top of the podium.

Verstappen also played down comments by Red Bull’s consultant race adviser Helmut Marko suggesting that the team were due to introduce major upgrades to their car in Spain.

“Helmut got a bit excited! I don’t know, but I think we’ll just be doing our normal programme and nothing crazy,” he said.

Mercedes’ George Russell, sitting alongside Verstappen in the press conference, said Red Bull had the potential to win every race on pure pace but agreed events could get in the way.

“I’d like to think we’ll be able to fight at some point and take advantage of some misfortune,” said the Briton.

His teammate and seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton added that Sunday’s race should give Mercedes a better picture of the true potential of their upgraded car.

Mercedes introduced the improvements for last weekend’s race in Monaco, with changes to the side pod and suspension, but the nature of the slow and twisty street circuit made it hard to draw any conclusions.

“You can’t really tell a lot from Monaco, you would never choose to test an upgrade at Monaco,” Hamilton said. “This is a perfect test track, a lot of medium and high-speed corners, so we should get a real good understanding of where we stand compared to the others.” REUTERS, AFP