Verstappen signals Red Bull's strides: 'Progression to be seen in coming races'

Max Verstappen takes note of the improvements made by Red Bull Racing after Bahrain, but stresses there's more to be done if they are to really challenge McLaren.

Verstappen surprised with pace as Red Bull start understanding RB21 better

“I was very positively surprised, to be honest, because on Friday, it was very, very tough," said Verstappen during the post-race press conference.

"And it didn't matter what I was doing in terms of driving, management, the tyres would just fall off. The car was a lot nicer. Still limitations, but it was much more promising. And actually, at one point when I started to pull away again, I was quite surprised, positively surprised.”

Although tyre degradation is characterised by having low tyre degradation, Verstappen is inspired by how the changes they made on the RB21 on Saturday, also worked for Sunday, indicating that the Austrians are beginning to better understand their 2025 contender.

“We have to stay a little bit calm because this track doesn't have a lot of deg, and we know that when we go to tracks where there's higher deg, we just struggle more. We still need to work on that. But the changes that we made already yesterday also worked for today. So I'm very pleased with that.”

'Unexpected pace' bridges gap to McLaren?

With how grim Red Bull's and Verstappen's prospects for the race looked, the ultimate turn around was then, of course, surprising. Have Red Bull closed the gap to McLaren?

“I don't know, it's impossible to say. I also haven't looked at numbers. For me, it was just positively surprising with my pace. It was much better than I expected it to be. So that's a good thing,” said the reigning world champion.

What, then, does Red Bull need to finally be able to challenge McLaren consistently?

“I think we need to find more overall performance, balance especially, and of course consistency. We are not good at every track, that's quite clear. In Bahrain we were lacking a lot, here it was for sure a lot better. But like I said, it's also very low deg and then more cars come alive."

'Progression to be seen in coming F1 races'

Nevertheless, whilst Verstappen highlights the positives, he urges Red Bull to bring in updates to address the RB21's weaknesses.

“So, we still have work to do but at least it's a promising result. Overall, it's been a promising weekend, at the end of the day. We really managed to find a good balance or a decent balance, and that's, of course, positive for us.”

“From now on, we need to work more on our weaknesses that we know we have. We need to come with upgrades to fix that. Hopefully in the coming races we can see some progression,” concluded Verstappen.