World Championship leader and reigning champion Max Verstappen is looking forward to make progress again, coming of three race weekends that were more difficult than anyone perhaps had imagined after the dominant performances in Asia earlier in the season. In Imola there was a victory eventually, but had the race lasted only a few laps longer Verstappen might have faced a winless streak of three Grands Prix, something he hasn’t experienced since the late stages of 2021.
With Lando Norris pointing out Ferrari as the clear favourite for this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix, Verstappen isn’t too concerned with what the others are doing.
“I just try to focus on what we have here,” he said in typical stoic fashion. “I think we have plenty to work on. We knew that already.
“But naturally, after Monaco, I think we have a good direction to work in, and that’s actually quite exciting.
“I’m not focused on what the others are doing because that’s just a waste of time and energy, and we know that from our side there are things that we can do better, and that’s what we’ll focus on.
“I’m sure that if we do those things well, we still have a very strong team.”
The race weekends in Imola and especially Monaco highlighted the biggest weakness of the Red Bull RB20: its ability to ride the kerbs. A similar challenge will arise on Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, as the many chicanes on the semi-street track require the kerbs to be attacked aggressively.
“This is something that we know is not our favourite thing in the world,” the Dutchman addresses the issue. “But it’s something that we’re working on to try and make better. And this takes time.
“This is not something that is solved from one week to the next, but yeah, for sure we’ll try to optimise things.
“It’s been a problem since day one of the new regulation. And this is something that we know, and we haven’t been able to fix it yet.”
So with this fundamental weakness being exposed because the rest of the field is catching up, this means that it’s all hands on deck in Milton Keynes, even more so after the team picked up only eight points in Monaco.
“I do think that after Monaco it gave us another wake-up call, and yeah, we had a lot of good meetings. I think at the factory and discussions where I feel like there is a bit more focus on that now, to try and improve that.
“Because I feel like, of course with everyone catching up, naturally you can’t rely on your advantage anymore even though your kerb riding is bad or whatever.
“So it definitely needs to be fixed, but it just takes a bit of time to really make, let’s say, big changes on the car because some things are designed and they might need to get redesigned or whatever.
“So you can’t do that with a budget cap within one or two weeks.”
Admitting that the kerb-riding issue is something fundamental in the car prompted the question whether it is something that can be solved during the season, or whether it needs to be fixed in the RB21, and thus they need to make do with the issues.
“I still think that we can do a good job this year if everything works out,” the three-time World Champion responded. “But at the moment, yeah, we have to try a few things, see what works best, and then for sure, I think maybe some things will be different next year, that maybe are a bit more difficult to, let’s say, redesign this year.
“But I’m still hopeful and confident that we can do a better job already this year.”
