Verstappen fears for his chances if Red Bull 'continues like this'

Max Verstappen had a 2024 season in two stages. In the first third of the championship, the Red Bull driver was often dominant, in line with his 2023 campaign, but the Miami GP marked a turning point: Lando Norris achieved his first success in the McLaren, while Verstappen began to be in difficulty in an increasingly struggling Red Bull.

The lead he had built up gradually eroded but it was ultimately enough to allow him to win his fourth world title, even if Red Bull saw the constructors' title slip away from him. Aware of the strengths of the competition but also the weaknesses of his own training, Verstappen warns that a reaction is necessary, at the risk of not playing for the 2025 title.

“If we continue like this, I won’t be champion next year”declared the Dutchman to the daily De Telegraaf. “It's as simple as that. We really need to make progress to perform well next year, we all know that.”

“I have faith in the team that they can resolve the balance issues from last season. Some things that we couldn't adjust last season will be adjusted for next season. We know we have to do better on the curbs, on the bumps and in the slow corners Usually these are our weaknesses. Afterwards, if we are beaten again, it will be in pure speed.

Red Bull seems to have gotten lost in the development of the RB20, which has become “barely drivable” at one stage of the season according to Verstappen. He had access to certain data for the first time during the Monza weekend and it was by studying it that the team clearly understood the problems that appeared on his car.

The engineers then changed course and Verstappen was able to regain victory twice at the end of the season, in the rain at Interlagos then on a dry track at Losail: “All the plans for new things that were to come after [le GP d’Italie] could have been put in the trash. In fact, the team started from scratch after that. Until then, they couldn't find the precise problem.”

“I saw some graphs while analyzing the data. I saw aerodynamic changes at corner entry, cornering and also in the ride height. It was different compared to last year's car. I said 'Hey, that's clearly the problem, right?' Later I learned that this was the case. I had never seen this data and these graphs before.

“I said that the things we had to work on were quite clear, because the engineers knew exactly what had changed compared to last year's car. At the start of the season, we were still winning clearly but I felt already the car wasn't behaving the way I wanted it to, but at the time, we still had a big lead over the other teams, who hadn't had a very good winter.

With Ronald Vording