Max Verstappen says he needs more than a perfect end to the season to have a chance of winning the drivers’ championship for the fifth year in a row.
He made significant gains on the two McLaren drivers with his fourth victory of the season in Azerbaijan today. However he remains 69 points behind championship leader Oscar Piastri with 199 available over the seven remaining rounds.
“There’s seven [rounds] to go and it’s still 69 points,” Verstappen reflected after today’s race. “It’s a lot.
“Basically, everything needs to go perfect from my side, and then a bit of luck from their side I need as well. So it’s still very tough.”
Red Bull have made significant gains since the summer break, in which time Verstappen has taken two wins and a second place. However his two victories came on low-downforce tracks and it remains to be seen how competitive the RB21 will be at other venues.
“I think it’s just a combination of a lot of things that are going better in the last few weeks,” Verstappen told Sky. “We understood a bit more about the car. Of course, it’s two low-downforce tracks, so we have to wait and see how we’re going to perform again on a high-downforce track.
“But for now, we’re just very happy with what we’re doing and then we’ll just find out in the upcoming races how that will go on other kinds of layouts.”
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He won today’s race from pole position while the McLaren drivers failed to make progress after qualifying seventh and ninth on the grid. Verstappen led home George Russell who rose from fifth on the grid to take second place, 14 seconds behind the Red Bull.
Verstappen said the advantage he built up at the start of the race accounted for most of his winning margin. “George was also quick and I think most of it was just done in the beginning,” he said. “Just your starting position and then you just do your lap times.
“Around here it’s not easy to be constantly on the limit with the track layout, the wind as well because all your lap time is on entry [to corners] and that is also the most risky part of the track. If you just overshoot it a bit you’re in the wall, so finding that limit is tough.
“But the car was working well, the deg[radation] was good. In general [it was] just quite straightforward. At the same time, what was it, like 14 seconds? But for us the last two races have been amazing.”
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