Why Max Verstappen has proven Red Bull myth WRONG
When he crossed the finish line in first place at the Chinese Grand Prix in April, taking his fourth win from five races and finishing over 13 seconds ahead of his closest challenger, a fourth successive drivers’ championship appeared a foregone conclusion for Max Verstappen and Red Bull.
After all, this was driver and team continuing to operate at their imperious best, harnessing their clear speed advantage to trounce fellow competitors for whom the moniker ‘rivals’ would have been far too kind a description.Though cars are developed throughout the course of Formula 1 seasons, and the competitive order may undergo incremental changes over an extended period of time, Red Bull’s advantage so far outstripped that of the rest of the field that Verstappen’s chances of matching or even potentially outdoing his record of 19 wins in a single season set in 2023 seemed realistic.
Fast forward a little less than five months, and after finishing sixth in Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix, Verstappen has now won just three of the last 11 races (including none of the most recent six), leading him to believe he is unlikely to take a single further victory before the end of the season.
“Nothing went well,” the 25-year-old said. “The car didn’t respond at all. I also didn’t like the strategy. The pitstop was s*** as well. And most of the race we had to drive with less power due to issues.”As reviews of race days go, Verstappen’s was about as comprehensively damning as it could have possibly been.
