Red Bull, Verstappen sounds the alarm: “Domination? Gone, and Perez..”

The Dutchman’s alarm

“If it’s thanks to me that Red Bull makes a better impression than it’s worth? I get paid for this, but if you are forced to always drive at 101% it’s obvious that one day things will go wrong.”. Max Verstappen reached by Telegraaf he underlined that the lack of pole position today in Barcelona must be a sort of definitive wake-up call for a Red Bull already aware of the fact that the ‘bliss’ is over.

The opponents have closed the gap and on a ‘Red Bull’ track like Barcelona the pole position did not arrive even if for only 20 thousandths. Verstappen, Lambiase and the other technicians made satisfactory changes to the car between FP3 and Qualifying, perhaps exaggerating a little too much with the aerodynamic load with the aim of having a ‘race’ set-up and in the end for the third time in a row Verstappen he missed the appointment with the pole start after having signed seven pole positions in the first seven Qualifying sessions of 2024. Monaco aside, however, in Canada Verstappen set the same time of one thousandth of a second as George Russell and in Spain he bowed to Norris for 20 thousandths. Trifles, but the Dutchman always analyzes the situation from 360° and there are many reasons to worry.

“The dominance we had is gone – he said at the press conference – we need to find more performance and improve the car if we want to win the title”. “The gap with Perez is very wide and I think this also says a lot – he added to Telegraaf – there are still many races and if you have a fast car you can make up ground quickly. At McLaren they were simply good, the car is strong everywhere and they are also making very good use of the tyres. McLaren are doing better than us otherwise they wouldn’t be ahead of me. We too are progressing, but not as much as others. At McLaren they have built a very solid package.”