Max Verstappen lost another three points to Lando Norris in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix as he could only finish P5 following a very disappointing race for the Dutchman.
The three-time defending champion was well off his usual standards on Sunday, struggling with the balance of the RB20 and lacked pace compared to teammate Sergio Pérez.
Red Bull’s World Championship contender explained the changes between FP3 and qualifying was the key reason for such an underwhelming performance.
“I think we just paid the price with the changes that we made into qualifying. That made it just really difficult to drive.
“The car was jumping around a lot, the wheels were coming off the ground in the low-speed corners. When you don’t have a contact patch with the tarmac, it’s very difficult.”
Explaining that “the set-up” was the key difference to his Mexican teammate concerning pace, the 26-year-old said the decision to go in a different direction was made by him and the engineers on his side of the garage.
“Yes, our side. You know, you win and lose as a team. We thought it would be a good direction to go into. In the end, it wasn’t.”
The three-time defending World Champion explained it was not a surprise the car felt good in practice despite the struggles they had in Monza.
“Not a surprise, just that after we tried to make it even better, unfortunately, we made it worse.
“You try to make changes always to make the car better, but unfortunately, what we did made it worse.”
Crucially for Verstappen as the title battle heats up, he felt he had a proper connection with the car before the changes ahead of qualifying.
“Well, I had the connection with the car, but then, unfortunately, with the changes that we made, we lost it again.”
A big moment in the race that saw Verstappen become a sitting duck to Lando Norris on fresh mediums at the end was during the Brit’s hard stint.
With Alex Albon just ahead, Norris could use the slipstream and DRS from the Williams to fend off his title rival. Verstappen was stuck for over 10 laps, and he lost valuable race time, costing him a potential P3 in the end because of the crash between Pérez and Sainz.
Verstappen says everything went wrong on Sunday, and that allowed his good friend to beat him.
“If you look at my race, everything was the worst-case scenario.
“My general balance that I had, and being stuck behind Alex and Lando, then of course it’s not a surprise at all.”
While admitting it was a great opportunity missed to extend his title lead, Verstappen says McLaren also left points on the table.
“Yes, it is, but you can also turn it around. I think they could have done a better job as well. It is what it is.
“I think they could have done a better job as well. It’s what it is. I think we learned a lot.
“With the set-up, maybe we went the wrong way. We’ll try to do better.
“Yeah, probably positive for me [to have only last three points]. Of course, I would have liked to extend the gap.
“But, yeah, with our race today, I’m still happy that it was only that.”
59 points separate Verstappen and Norris with seven Grands Prix and three Sprints to go.
The Dutchman believes McLaren and Norris need to be perfect to overhaul them in the Drivers’ Championship if Red Bull manage to be in the mix like they were with Pérez in Azerbaijan.
Despite Oscar Piastri’s recent surge, he’s confident it’s a 2-way fight for the championship.
“I think if we do a better job ourselves, they need to have a perfect end to the year.
“I mean, the gap is still decent, I would say. So, of course, at the moment it’s still just Lando.”
Piastri and Leclerc’s strong performances recently have helped out Verstappen in the championship battle against Norris, and he took encouragement from Pérez being in the mix yesterday.
Nonetheless, Verstappen is aware that consistently finishing in P6 is not going to help his cause and wants to improve on that.
“I guess in a way [it helps], yeah.
“But I don’t like to, of course, always be P6 myself. So, yeah, we need to do a bit better.
“I think today already showed that, for example, with Checo, when he was a bit happier, the car was performing a bit better. We are in that fight.
“Okay, maybe we didn’t win, but we were in that fight with Checo.
“So, I think from now onwards, we can be in that fight constantly if we keep improving the car step by step, a little bit after our findings on Monza.
“I think it was a good step [forward], yeah.”
