F1 News: Max Verstappen Warns Red Bull After British GP - 'Work To Be Done'

Saajan Jogia | Jul 7, 2024

Max Verstappen of the Netherlands and Oracle Red Bull Racing prepares to drive in the garage during qualifying ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Monaco at Circuit de Monaco on May 25, 2024 in Monte-Carlo, Monaco. / Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images

In what could be seen as a wake-up call for Red Bull, Max Verstappen has warned his team ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix in two weeks, admitting that the RB20 is not currently the fastest car on the grid. The Dutchman secured a second-place finish at Silverstone, but he owed that achievement to the right strategy rather than the RB20's outright pace.

The British Grand Prix ended with Lewis Hamilton taking the top spot, followed by Verstappen and Lando Norris in the same order. However, the Red Bull driver endured challenges pertaining to excessive tire wear. Speaking to Viaplay, he expected to finish P5 or P6 mid-race. He said:

"Yes, it was going nowhere.

"On those mediums, the front tires immediately got way too hot and I just had no grip in the slow corners. I could no longer attack in the fast corners, so that's why I naturally dropped all the way back. At one point it looked like it might be P5 or P6. This is obviously not what you want.''

Verstappen credited his second-place finish to making the right decisions at critical moments, highlighting that strategy was key to his performance. He added:

"Right calls. I said now we have to go to inters, so that was good. But even there we were just too slow of course. The tyres again just got too hot and in the end we made the right call again to go from those inters to slicks.

''We really just couldn't have done better yet. The team then also put that hard tyre on my car and that was obviously good for me. With a car that was too slow, eventually coming second and just taking all the right decisions as a team, then that's the maximum. But yes, that's obviously not what I want.''

The three-time world champion elaborated that the hard tire configuration on his RB20 was instrumental in catching up with Norris and Hamilton, who were running on less optimal tires for the track conditions. Dismissing the car's speed as the reason for his P2 finish, a dissatisfied Verstappen stated:

''That's more because of course they had the wrong tyre on the car. If they had driven on that hard tyre, of course we wouldn't have had a chance either."

Sending a clear message to his team ahead of the next Grand Prix at the Hungaroring, Verstappen concluded:

"Work to be done. We are really not the fastest at the moment.''