ZANDVOORT, Netherlands — Red Bull’s motorsport advisor Helmut Marko can always be trusted to tell it like it is, and after Sunday’s Dutch Grand Prix, it was no different.
“We’re clearly being beaten and that’s alarming,” he told Austria’s ServusTV.
The statement followed one of Red Bull’s biggest losing margins since the introduction of Formula One‘s current regulation set in 2022, with Max Verstappen crossing the finish line 22.869 seconds behind race winner Lando Norris.
Despite snatching the lead of the race at the first corner, Verstappen was powerless to stop his closest title rival passing him on lap 18 and disappearing into the distance. It was the type of victory only Verstappen himself has been able to inflict on rivals in recent years, and the explicit manifestation of a trend that was already building for several races before the summer break.
There is now no doubt that McLaren has a better all-round car than Red Bull, but it is the speed with which it has overhauled the world champions that is most surprising. At the season opener in March, Norris was 48 seconds adrift of race winner Verstappen, meaning, as a snapshot, Zandvoort represented a 70-second swing over a race distance in just five months.
Such a dramatic turnaround in such a short space of time is rare in Formula One and, as Marko said, undoubtedly “alarming” when you are on the receiving end. Is Red Bull really in trouble, though, or was the Zandvoort trouncing purely the result of a tough weekend in difficult conditions at an unusual circuit?
Winning margins are influenced by many factors and their size ultimately makes no difference to the points handed out, with Verstappen still reaping a healthy 18 points from his home race.
Of course, the core reason for Red Bull’s alarm is whether it has enough performance in reserve to ensure Verstappen’s 70-point lead isn’t whittled away over the final nine races of the season. Even a handful of races ago such a prospect seemed highly improbable, but if the current trend continues, Red Bull’s alarm bells will only ring louder.
What went wrong for Red Bull in Zandvoort?
Speaking after Sunday’s race, Verstappen said he had been struggling to find a “connected balance” in his car, referring to the Red Bull’s reluctance to turn into corners and propensity to snap into oversteer in corner exits.
“The whole weekend has been the same,” he explained. “I had pretty much the same balance from FP1 all the way to the race. I mean, the…
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