Max Verstappen has explained that all he can do to help Red Bull recover their form is to put in maximum effort and ‘try to give feedback’ on the RB20’s deficiencies. The reigning champions are not giving up the fight in either World Championship.
Verstappen will travel to Baku for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on his worst run of the ground effect era. The Dutchman has recorded just two podiums in his last six starts as Red Bull continue to slip down the pecking order.
During this time, McLaren and Lando Norris have emerged as legitimate contenders for both World Championships, with the Brit now just 62 points behind with the fastest car underneath him. However, Verstappen is working hard behind the scenes to help rectify the issues facing the RB20 and get his title charge back on track.
“Listen, I just do the best I can,” Verstappen explained. “If I win it or not, it’s not going to change my life. Would I like to win it? Yes, of course. But it’s not in my hands with the performance of the car, because I just try to do the best I can, try to give feedback, try to make it faster.
“If that’s going to be enough to the end of the year, I don’t know, but I do know that we’re going to give it everything we have as a team to try and be more competitive than what we’ve shown and just go from there.”
While Norris and McLaren are currently in the ascendency, it would be foolish to write off Verstappen and Red Bull. The three-time world champion made it clear that his team are “working flat out” on their comeback, and there is optimism that they could bounce back at the United States Grand Prix in Texas.
“Would I like to win more? Yes, of course,” he continued. “But I also knew that a season like we had last year is very unrealistic, but did I expect it to be like this? Not really with, of course, how we ended and how we started. So now it’s up to us to just try and make it better. But I know that everyone is working flat out to make it better.
“I mean, we know the balance problems, yeah, but now it’s up to us to try and make the car better to drive and more competitive. I think we are understanding where we need to find stuff. What we see in the wind tunnel, what we see from CFD, that is not the problem.”
If Verstappen is to keep his championship hopes alive, he will need to limit the damage from the upcoming races in Baku and Singapore. Bumpy street circuits have been the Achilles heel of Red Bull’s ground-effect cars and they are expecting more pain on that front in 2024.
