Formula One champions Red Bull aim to accelerate their performance during the final six races of the season, following Max Verstappen's stronger-than-expected performance in the back-to-back street races in Azerbaijan and Singapore, according to Christian Horner. Verstappen, who turns 27 next week, saw his lead over McLaren’s Lando Norris shrink from 62 points after the Italian Grand Prix at Monza on September 1 to the current 52 points. The season now enters a four-week break before a US-Mexico-Brazil sequence starting in Austin, Texas, on October 20, followed by another final triple-header of Las Vegas-Qatar-Abu Dhabi.
“I believe we’ve identified a path for development and have begun to understand some of the car’s issues. We’re addressing them,” Red Bull’s team principal, Horner, told reporters after Verstappen finished second to Norris in Singapore. “We performed better in Baku and improved here.” Verstappen finished fifth in Baku after a sixth-place finish at Monza, matching his worst result of the season at Monaco in May, but it could have been worse.
The Dutch driver dominated the remaining six races last year, delivering one of the most commanding seasons in the sport’s history. Despite McLaren leading in the constructors’ standings by 41 points, Horner felt the team was on the right track. “The encouraging aspect was that the car responded as we anticipated and as our tools indicated,” he said about Singapore. “The team is beginning to understand some of the limitations and their causes, which opens up development opportunities that should be productive.
“Monza really exposed, or helped identify, the root cause of the issue. So, I’m viewing Monza as the low point, and we’re starting to recover from that.” While McLaren believes the drivers’ championship is within reach, the reality is that Norris still faces a significant challenge. A single retirement could either widen or end the battle, but Norris will need to improve his scoring rate. With three sprint races adding to the points tally, a maximum of 180 points remain to be won.
Azerbaijan and Singapore were seen as circuits where Norris and McLaren could make substantial gains, and Ferrari appeared more of a threat. However, Verstappen only lost 10 points to his rival. In practical terms, Norris remains nearly as far from Verstappen as he was when he secured his first victory in Miami in May, after Verstappen had won four of the first five races. That win brought Norris within 53 points. Since then, 12 races have passed, and although Verstappen hasn’t won since June, his lead has remained robust.
