Verstappen lies only a point behind leader Lando Norris after three race weekends
Max Verstappen’s victory in the Japanese GP gave his Red Bull Racing team a welcome boost and opened up the possibility that he could yet be a title contender this season.
Clearly Red Bull is going to have to improve the RB21 and make it consistently more competitive if Verstappen is really going to be in the fight.
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It says a lot that Suzuka was widely seen as an underdog win, not a phrase that has been attached to Verstappen very often in the past.
However, it was also applied to Ayrton Senna in 1993 when the Brazilian scored five victories with a McLaren powered by the Ford HB V8 against the otherwise dominant Alain Prost and Williams.
Senna won in the wet and at places like Monaco where his talent could make the difference, and Suzuka was a similar piece of opportunism by Verstappen.
What he does have going for him is the fact that Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will continue to take points off each other.
Thus if he can remain in touch and the car is improved over what is going to be a long season – with the switch to the 2026 car impacting everyone’s development path – he can’t be counted out. Not that a title challenge on his radar at the moment.
“Honestly, I don’t like to really think about that too much,” he says. “I’m just focussed on finding performance in the car.
“As soon as we are close to them or level, then I know that it’s going to be fine, but we are not there, and we first need to get to that point. Because otherwise there’s no point to even discuss a championship battle.”
It was back to reality in Bahrain on Friday as once again the Dutchman struggled to hone his car in FP2, having handed it to reserve driver Ayumu Iwasa for FP1.
Perhaps of more concern to Verstappen is that it could be a tough Sunday evening for the team, given what a big role tyres play in races at Sakhir.
“It will be more severe,” he noted on Thursday. “The first stint in Australia, we got destroyed, also with the overheating and deg in general. Same in China, I would say, to a certain extent, also in in Suzuka, but you can’t pass.
“Lando was closing up to me in the end of that first stint again, and I knew that was coming, and I was just driving to my own pace. But I think because the track temp dropped quite a bit on the day, that helped a bit.
“And here it’s going to be hot. Of course, we drive in the night, so we’ll cool down a little bit, but still hot, aggressive tarmac. So on paper, from what we’ve seen so far this season, that’s not let’s say ideal for us, compared to McLaren.
“But it’s up to us to try and find those improvements in the car or tyre behaviour, and just go from there.”
Suzuka was a timely boost for the team, and Verstappen’s cheeky suggestion that he would have dominated had he been driving a McLaren was a nice bit of gamesmanship. He is well aware that it won’t be easy to repeat that victory.
“I think actually having a win is great,” he said. “Everyone loves winning, but we’re also very aware that we still need to improve. That’s been the target from the start, but still, it’s better than being second or third coming out of that weekend.
“So we take it, we’re proud we maximised our performance there, the car was not easy to balance out, and we made it, let’s say, driveable. And on the Sunday, it was good enough to hang in there.”
He downplayed any impact on him personally: “I did get happy, of course, after qualifying, just because my weekend so far was super difficult, I didn’t feel comfortable.
“So then the relief was there in qualifying, and I was very happy on the Sunday, because I think as a team, we executed everything very well. The pit stop was not fantastic, but the rest was really well managed, also with GP [Gianpiero Lambiase], but it’s not as enjoyable as ’23 or whatever.”
The big weakness for red Bull at the moment is that the RB21 has a very small window in which it works effectively. Finding that sweet spot isn’t easy, especially as the team struggles to start weekends with a set-up that Verstappen likes, suggesting that there’s a correlation issue. So is that window even narrower than last year?
“No, I don’t think so, but it’s also not necessarily much bigger at the moment,” he admits. “So we need to definitely find more.
“Sometimes the balance is just a little bit better, and sometimes it’s been a bit more off. So far, most of the time it’s been off because it’s just super sensitive to little changes that we make.
“And then, of course, you try to work your way through the weekend to make sure that at least you get the right balance for qualifying.
“But practice is also there to sometimes test things. Of course, you want to be quick, and you want to do well, but sometimes also things need to be tested and understood.”
Adam Cooper F1 