Max Verstappen recently discussed how the Red Bull F1 team took a wrong turn with one of their upgrades this year and how he's confident he will be fighting for wins "very soon."
Following the first few rounds of the 2024 season, in which Max Verstappen finished, on average, more than 30 seconds ahead of McLaren drivers, it would sound unbelievable if someone said the Papaya team could win the Championship.
What's even more surprising is that not only is McLaren now in the lead of the Constructors' Championship, but Lando Norris won the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix (the most recent race) more than 20 seconds ahead of Verstappen.
McLaren has obviously made an enormous leap forward. However, something has also gone wrong with Red Bull, and team principal Christian Horner has already admitted that the upgrade in Barcelona was the turning point.
Speaking to Sky Italy, Max Verstappen explained that even though his F1 team had already identified the problem, it takes time to fix it, and that's why they are still struggling compared to McLaren.
"Let's say we took the wrong direction with the car. Now we are trying to correct it but it takes time, you can't just flip a switch and fix everything."
"We are working on it, then we also had bad luck in some episodes in the last races, some unfortunate decisions that compromised the final result. But I know we can do better."
When does Red Bull hope to solve its problems? The Austrian F1 team plans to bring a big upgrade to the upcoming race in Austin, the first Grand Prix after the autumn break.
The triple World Champion, who recorded the most dominant season in Formula 1 last year, admitted he didn't expect this year to be the same.
However, he probably also didn't expect to be unable to score a win for eight race weekends in a row. On the positive side for all Red Bull fans, Verstappen added that he expects to fight for the win very soon.
"Obviously I don't expect it to go like last year, where we dominated the whole season, but I feel confident that we can get back to fighting for the win very soon."
It started out pretty well, it was just a continuation of last year. But I always prepare myself not to have excessive expectations."