Who broke for F1's summer break with the fastest car on the increasingly-competitive grid?; Max Verstappen says it was no longer title leaders Red Bull, while Lewis Hamilton predicts it will be "one hell of a second half of the season" at the front amid big McLaren and Mercedes gains
Tuesday 6 August 2024 08:46, UK
Max Verstappen admits Red Bull have been overtaken by their much-improved F1 rivals and says the reigning champions "know that we have work to do" to improve when the season resumes at the end of August.
For the first time since 2020, the season before Verstappen won his maiden world title, Red Bull have gone four races without a race win after the Belgian Grand Prix, the final round before the sport's ongoing summer break.
Verstappen - who had started 11th due to a grid penalty - and team-mate Sergio Perez finished what became fourth and seventh at Spa-Francorchamps after a race in which drastically improved Mercedes had initially finished one-two before George Russell's disqualification.
McLaren's Oscar Piastri and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc also finished ahead of the lead Red Bull.
And with McLaren and Mercedes having made big gains so far this season to split the last four wins between them, Verstappen suggested that Red Bull clearly no longer had F1's quickest car.
"I think they are ahead of us," Verstappen told Sky Sports F1.
"It depends. Sometimes McLaren, sometimes Mercedes.
"I think we were faster than Ferrari but coming from P11 we didn't have enough time to pass them. We know that we have work to do.
"We know that we want to do better, we are of course not satisfied with this, but everyone is doing a great job and you have to take your hat off for that as well."
Recent races have proved a far cry from the start of the season when Verstappen won four of the opening five races, and then three of the next five, to establish a commanding early lead in the Drivers' Championship.
His advantage over nearest-challenger Lando Norris remains a still-comfortable 78 points with Verstappen's cause helped by the fact the formbook has fluctuated between different teams over recent races and he remains the only driver this season to win consecutive races.
Verstappen's lead remains just over the points equivalent of three race wins with 10 grands prix and three Sprints to come in 2024.
But Red Bull's lead in the Constructors' Championship has become far more precarious amid Perez's sustained struggles for form with McLaren now just 42 points behind them. The gap between the two teams had been 115 points after the season's first six rounds.
Reflecting on his run to fourth from his penalised grid spot at Spa, Verstappen said: "If you start P1 where I qualified, my race probably would have looked very different and then maybe you can challenge for the win," said Verstappen.
"But of course we took that penalty, you start P11, and then being stuck in traffic on a track where tyre life and tyre overheating is quite crucial, it's quite a tricky race."
In terms of outright consistency, McLaren have been the grid's standard-bearers in recent months with the team on a 10-race run of consecutive podium finishes - the Woking outfit's best sequence since achieving 13 in a row in 2011-2012.
They have also been the highest-scoring team of the past eight races.
But the team have repeatedly insisted that this does still not mean they have the quickest car from circuit to circuit, even if rivals disagree.
"I think it's one of the quickest," said Oscar Piastri of their impressive MCL38 car.
"Budapest we were quickest. [In Belgium] from my side I made too many mistakes in qualifying and that ended up costing us a bit. But it's very tight.
"If we are quickest, it's not by much. I think Red Bull were very quick this weekend, just Max got stuck in dirty air. Mercedes are clearly very strong as well but we probably had a little edge, just not the track position to capitalise on it."
Mercedes, meanwhile, are also on their best run of the current ground-effect regulation era with the former champions going into the summer off the back of three wins in four race weekends.
Lewis Hamilton has taken two of those wins, the second of which in Belgium was inherited after team-mate Russell's exclusion for an underweight car, and acknowledges their sudden revival had come as big a surprise to them as everyone else.
"It's really fantastic, I think, for the sport to be having such close teams and drivers," said Hamilton.
"And, you know, the pedigree of drivers at the top today are really elite and amazing.
"We didn't expect to be competing with the McLarens or the Red Bulls at this point in the season, you know, with how we started off. So for us to now have closed up... it's going to be one hell of a second half of the season for sure."
Formula 1 returns after the summer break with the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort on August 23-25, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream every F1 race and more with a NOW Sports Month Membership - No contract, cancel anytime
