Verstappen senses McLaren and Ferrari closing in: "a wake-up call"
F1 News
Max Verstappen has stated his Red Bull Racing team had a "wake-up" call after their last performance in Monaco. This weekend, the F1 circus heads to a track with similar characteristics, and the Dutchman senses McLaren and Ferrari are chasing hard.
Verstappen scored just eight points in the Monaco Grand Prix, his lowest weekend points haul since July 2022. As was similar at the bumpy Singapore street circuit in 2023, Red Bull experienced performance problems, which saw their rivals move firmly ahead.
Wake-up call for Red Bull Racing
Verstappen stated that the problem has existed throughout Red Bull's dominant period since the introduction of the 2022 rules and regulations. However, the recent upgrades from both McLaren and Ferrari have caused this problem to be highlighted.
"It's been a problem since day one of the new regulation, and this is something that we know. We haven't been able to fix it yet. I do think that after Monaco it gave us another wake-up call. We had a lot of good meetings at the factory and discussions where I feel like there's a bit more focus on that now to try and improve that because I feel like with everyone catching up naturally, you can't rely on your advantage anymore, even though your curb riding is bad or whatever," Verstappen told the media, including GPblog, in Canada.
Can Red Bull solve the problem?
The Dutchman went on to say that this will not be a quick fix for Red Bull, and it's a problem that will continue to hinder them. "It definitely needs to be fixed. But it just takes a bit of time to really make big changes on the car because some things are designed, and they might need to get redesigned or whatever, so you can't do that with the FIA. I think it's going to take a bit of time," he added.
Helmut Marko previously explained that the simulator results are not matching reality. Verstappen further explained that point in Canada. "On the simulator, they are probably too good, and it gives you a bit of a wrong idea of how to set up the car. Some tracks, I think we do a better job than others. But honestly, I think if you ask everyone, that's the same. It's very hard to nail it all the time. It does help us, and we can try a lot of stuff on the simulator but some tracks work a bit better than others," Verstappen concluded.