Red Bull’s Max Verstappen has said the team “don’t need to panic” after going on a winless run of five races amid balance issues at the Dutch Grand Prix.
Launching well off the line on Sunday, Verstappen grabbed the holeshot from polesitter Lando Norris but eventually succumbed to a 20s deficit to the winning McLaren driver.
The Dutchman fought a Red Bull RB20 that lacked balance from “front to rear” with second the best he could achieve in front of his home crowd.
A five-race winless streak is the longest Verstappen has endured since 2020, but he isn’t smashing the panic button just yet.
“The last few races haven’t really been fantastic,” Verstappen said post-race.
“So that I think in a sense was already a bit alarming.
“But we know that we don’t need to panic. We are just trying to improve the situation. And that’s what we are working on.”
Verstappen acknowledged that “all weekend” he was struggling with his RB20’s balance, which he admitted was “all over the place” after qualifying.
“I had pretty much the same balance from FP1 all the way to the race,” the Dutchman said. “The limitations are the same.
“It’s just very hard to solve at the moment.
“It just seems like we’re too slow but also quite bad on [tyre degradation] at the moment.
“That’s a bit weird because I think the last few years normally we’ve been quite good on that.
“Something has been going wrong lately with the car that we need to understand. We need to of course quickly try to improve.”
Red Bull’s situation is a far cry from where the team was at during the opening few rounds of the 2024 campaign, where it won races with relative ease.
However, Verstappen noted that the balance issues the team is experiencing now weren’t prevalent at that point in the season.
“Something in the car has made it more difficult to drive and it’s very hard to pinpoint where that is coming from at the moment,” Verstappen explained.
“That is then hurting our one-lap performance but also our long run [pace].”
After Norris’ win, Verstappen’s lead in the Drivers’ standings is 70 points.
So, no need to “panic.”
However, the magnitude of Norris’ victory and Red Bull’s persistent problems will be cause for concern for the reigning champion.
