Max Verstappen is satisfied with the result after Zandvoort, but not with the pace—despite finishing second, Red Bull was not the second-fastest team in the race
Max Verstappen is naturally “happy” with his second place at his home race in Zandvoort on Sunday. However, apart from the pure result, the world champion is anything but satisfied with Red Bull’s performance last weekend.
Although second place is a decent result, “in terms of speed, it wasn’t good,” Verstappen told Viaplay. In fact, the Dutchman only finished P2 behind Oscar Piastri because Lando Norris’ second McLaren broke down in the final stages.
Had the Briton seen the checkered flag as normal, second place would have been out of reach for Verstappen. “McLaren is on another level. I don’t even compare myself to them,“ the 27-year-old clarified after his home Grand Prix.
And even third place behind the McLaren duo was only possible thanks to a strong performance in qualifying, in his opinion. ”I think I only finished third in the race because of qualifying, because the speed wasn’t there,” Verstappen said.
In other words, Verstappen only finished on the podium because overtaking is so difficult at Zandvoort. He himself believes that other drivers who qualified behind him would actually have had a better race pace.
Marko: Red Bull “one second” behind McLaren
“When they pushed,” says Helmut Marko about McLaren, the gap per lap was “one second.” “It was more than we expected,” admits the Austrian, who is therefore happy to have finished ahead of Ferrari and Mercedes, at least.
“So we’ve taken a step forward since Budapest. But that’s not enough,“ says Marko. Verstappen, meanwhile, finds even clearer words and reminds us: ”Throughout the race, we were basically fighting with our sister team.“
”That shouldn’t happen,” emphasizes the world champion, who saw the checkered flag just 1.9 seconds ahead of Racing Bull driver Isack Hadjar. Although the gap is not particularly meaningful due to the many safety car phases on Sunday, Verstappen was never really able to pull away from his sister car during the race.
Even before the first safety car phase on lap 23, Verstappen was only a good two seconds ahead of Hadjar. This is a situation that is unacceptable for Verstappen, even though the world champion emphasizes that they know where their problems lie.
Verstappen back on the podium at least
“The car just isn’t fast enough,” he says, citing an example from Zandvoort: “While everyone else is going through turns 7 and 8 much faster, I have no grip. That’s not good, of course. It was better over one lap in qualifying.“
”But this season, the car just isn’t good in the race,” said Verstappen, who was back on the podium for the first time in two and a half months at Zandvoort. His last podium finish was in mid-June in Canada, where he also finished second.
This was followed by four races in a row without a podium finish. Verstappen had last experienced such a long dry spell at the start of the 2018 season – long before his first of now four world championship titles.
This streak has now come to an end in Zandvoort. However, Verstappen and Red Bull are still a long way from being genuine contenders for Grand Prix victories under normal circumstances. The world champion’s last victory in Imola in May is now three and a half months ago.
