Pessimistic Verstappen says Red Bull 'even worse now than we were last year’

Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen has hugely criticised his RB21 once again, saying it is "even worse" than the RB20 from last year in some facets.

The Dutchman endured a difficult weekend in the desert of Sakhir, finishing a disappointing P6 as he struggled with braking issues and overheating tyres, which meant he never really found his rhythm. The focus now shifts to the next Formula 1 race, the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, but Verstappen is hesitant to express any real optimism.

The disappointing weekend in Bahrain triggered another crisis meeting at Red Bull, and, according to Ralf Schumacher, Verstappen has already made up his mind about his future at the team. Meanwhile, Peter Windsor claimed that as long as Verstappen continues to suffer with braking issues, he's “just a normal driver.”

"We're even worse now than last year"

“The brakes were a little bit better today because we were allowed to change the material,” Verstappen said after the race in Bahrain. “But the problem is not only the feeling in the brakes, which is still not where I want it to be, but also our tyres are just overheating. So when I'm braking, there is no feeling because it's super easy to lock the fronts or the rears at the same time. For me, at least."

Those tyre-related issues made the weekend much more complicated than expected for the four-time world champion: “I just feel like we are even worse on tyres a lot this year. That makes it just very complicated, because last year we were not too bad around here. Of course, then people made improvements, but I feel like we actually had a worse weekend than last year. So it's a bit weird.”

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Verstappen: No solution in sight for Jeddah

Red Bull tried everything with the setup during the weekend, but it didn’t pay off: “They turned the car upside down, but there was nothing to fix,” the four-time world champion said, not expecting a fix for the next race either. 

“I mean, the layout will probably help a bit because, in general, there's just a bit less tech. But when you're worse on tyres, you are worse on it anyway.”

Still, Verstappen isn’t writing off his chances at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit just yet – but he’s clearly cautious: “It's so hard to tell. Our car is so sensitive to set up anyway that I could say yes or no, but it might change, you know, just when you do that.”

This article was written in collaboration with Nicole Mulder