After a P3 finish for Max Verstappen at the British GP, he admitted that Red Bull was ‘just too slow’. However, they optimised their results by making the right calls at the right time.
Approaching the final race of the first triple header, the momentum that Red Bull had been carrying since mid 2023 finally seemed to falter. With McLaren showing themselves as the fastest car on the grid and Mercedes making the steps to be the third fastest. Ferrari though struggling through the triple header, aren’t far behind.
Max Verstappen had damage to his floor through qualifying only managing to put the car into P4 behind the two Mercedes and the McLaren of Lando Norris. However the Dutch driver made a good start getting ahead of the McLaren. When the rain fell and strategy became vital, Red Bull made the right call enabling Max to move into second.
Max Verstappen was open about how Red Bull strategy saved their race, “It was satisfying making all the right calls,” going on to say, “We couldn’t probably have done a better job today.”
He told Sky Sports that Red Bull just didn’t have pace of the frontrunners describing the RB20 as ‘so slow’.
Similarly, Verstappen talked to Red Bull about the lack of pace mostly in the first half of the race.
“I couldn’t keep up with Mercedes, I couldn’t keep up with the McLaren’s. Yeah, just degging harder than them.”
Over the last few race weekends it had become clear that the levels of tyre degradation are much worse for Red Bull than Mercedes. Something the championship leader described as ‘worrying’.
Despite the struggles that Verstappen and Red Bull had with pace, Verstappen still said it was a ‘fun race’.
“With the rain coming in, I definitely enjoyed it. But looking at the pure pace it was quite tough. Not the best or strongest weekend for us.”
The Dutchman went as far to say this isn’t the first race the team has struggled, “Most of the races lately we haven’t been that quick in the race. I mean we managed to win a few but I think just by making good calls and stuff. Putting ourselves in the right place.”
He summarised the weekend and the past few races by saying, “We have work to do, we know that. We’ll see next race.”
With the triple header over Red Bull will have time to look at the data to come back stronger in Hungary.
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