Red Bull will introduce a significant upgrade at the Hungarian Grand Prix this weekend in a bid to stay ahead of its much-improved rivals.
After a strong start to the season, Red Bull has regularly been coming under threat from rival teams in recent months. So far, the season has produced six different race winners across the first twelve rounds. Most recently, the Mercedes duo, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, claimed victories at Spielberg and Silverstone respectively, ending a winless streak that had stretched back to 2022.
For now, Verstappen and Red Bull are still leading in the championship standings, with the Dutch driver currently 84 points clear of second-placed Lando Norris. However, Verstappen has come under increased pressure in the last few rounds as their closest rivals have found extra performance through upgrades, making wins more difficult to secure. Notably, Verstappen’s teammate, Sergio Perez, is not among the six Grand Prix winners of 2024. His recent struggles and prolonged podium absence have allowed Red Bull’s competitors to capitalise.
Speaking at the Hungaroring on Thursday, Max Verstappen has emphasised that this weekend will be crucial for the team, particularly in terms of preparing for the second half of the season.
“You could say that, yes. I think so. If this is not giving us some good lap time, then I don’t know how the rest of the season is going to evolve,” Verstappen said of the latest upgrade.
“But at the same time, I also don’t know what’s coming from the other teams, right? So we just focus on ourselves.
“We brought stuff [earlier in the season], but they were not particularly big, I would say. This one is a bit bigger than what we have brought already. (…) And of course, I hope that will give us a bit of lap time. I think for everyone this is an important weekend.”
Verstappen believes that the RB20 is no longer the fastest car on pure pace.
“Probably it was even more natural than the year before for me to drive the car, which was a positive thing,” he said of his early-season performance.
“But then, I would say after a few races, with of course the competition probably also closing up, the car…we just had weekends which were a bit messy and a bit difficult to find the sweet spot. Where in the first few races, we didn’t really have a lot of issues and everything just seemed to click a bit more naturally.
“(…) Over the last few races we have not had the quickest car. So, I don’t expect that to suddenly be any different. Hopefully, the upgrades will give us a good boost, but at the moment I just want to see how that will all work this weekend.”
Red Bull seems to have fallen behind in the development race, with the likes of McLaren and Mercedes taking steps to close the gap.
“If you look at it realistically other teams have made bigger steps, that’s very clear,” he said. “But I know that my team is pushing as hard as they can to find performance. It’s just very complicated, these cars. Some bits might be also just in the set-up itself, but at the same time, yeah, we need to find more performance.
“Of course as the leading team you have less time, also in the wind tunnel and stuff. I’m not using that as an excuse because I don’t want to think like that. But the reality is that we have less time and we try to do the best we can.
“Other teams have shown that you can make big jumps. And actually, when you are the leading team and you’re doing very well in the past, then I think it’s quite normal to make smaller steps. But now it’s up to us again to try and find more performance and that’s what we try to do.”
