Red Bull’s dominant start to the 2024 season last weekend is unlikely to be replicated in many other races, Max Verstappen believes.
Verstappen led an emphatic one-two for the team in the Bahrain Grand Prix. Their closest rival, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jnr, finished 25 seconds behind him.
Although Red Bull’s rivals always expected them to be stronger in race conditions than qualifying, Verstappen said a change in wind conditions at the track ahead of the race tipped the balance further in their favour.
“Today was probably better than expected,” he said. “The thing that changed was the wind and the intensity of it. I had a better feeling with the car and I could look after my tyres quite well at the same time.
“So that was very positive – probably a bit more how it was in testing, as well. I just felt very comfortable with the car and that really showed today.”
Red Bull’s advantage over their rivals was amplified by the race conditions, said Verstappen.
“In general, other teams are closer, I just think that today everything just worked really, really well. I of course don’t expect that to happen every single grand prix in the near future.
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“But still, we’ll take it, we’ll look back at it, of course, we’ll analyse it and we’ll try to improve further.”
While their race pace remains strong, Verstappen said qualifying showed the RB20 isn’t as competitive over a single lap.
“I do think that we are just not that great on one-lap performance for whatever reason with the car,” he said. “But luckily it’s very good in the race for most tracks.
“Naturally, of course, you focus a little bit more on the race, but it just seems like other teams can maybe extract a little bit more over one lap than us for whatever reason. So that’s what we’ll look at for the coming races.”
Before the race Verstappen disputed George Russell’s claim Red Bull would be half a second per lap faster than their rivals. However his advantage was that much at times during the race.
“Of course I don’t know how they approach their long runs with fuel loads and whatever. But from our side it was definitely not expected to be a half a second ahead, for sure not. it was probably a bit better than I thought today.”
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