Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen warned that his team's performance hasn't been good enough for quite a few Grand Prix weekends.
The triple World Champion went into the summer break with a comfortable lead in the Drivers' Championship - 78 points ahead of Lando Norris in second place.
The McLaren driver is probably the biggest danger to him when it comes to securing the title, and Verstappen has been able to outperform him in five out of the last six races.
Considering this situation, the Dutchman should be satisfied with the progress. However, he didn't seem happy at all with the performance of this car.
The 26-year-old even dismissed the domination from the start of the season, labeling it "circuit-specific," as he said in the interview with Formula.hu:
"At the beginning, we could still say it was circuit-specific, but I think it's now clear that it doesn't matter which circuit we go to. We are struggling everywhere."
Some other drivers on the grid would probably give everything to "be struggling everywhere," like Max Verstappen with Red Bull, who amassed seven victories and 9 podiums in this season.
However, the Flying Dutchman is now only focused on winning the Championship, and he understands the standard has to be set incredibly high if the team from Milton Keynes wants to remain at the top.
Consequently, he is not satisfied with achieving podiums when he sees other teams catching up, and some are even faster than Red Bull already. He added:
"A drop in performance should be as much an incentive as the pursuit of success. I think if you are the winning team, you should actually push even harder."
"That should be the mentality. The people chasing you have the hunger to win and the desire to try to beat you. And they have done that well recently, so it is up to us to respond."