Max Verstappen says his pre-summer break form has hurt Red Bull’s title hopes as they head into the final triple-header of the season facing a 49-point deficit.
Lando Norris has a huge lead over Verstappen in the standings heading into this weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix, while Oscar Piastri is 25 points behind the defending champion with three races remaining. After the Dutch Grand Prix, Verstappen was trailing Piastri by 104 points, but with three wins and second place in four races, he was back in the race, and in the last two races he finished third behind Norris, falling behind again.
“To be honest, it’s difficult to know (if the car will be competitive again) because the track is completely different,” Verstappen said. “I think we’re still struggling a bit with the tires, so it will depend on the track layout and the temperature. We can stay within a good frame, but that’s not always the case. That’s what we have to focus on. That’s what we’ll focus on in the upcoming races.”
“What are we – now a 49-point difference? So, also… I mean, we didn’t lose the championship (in Brazil). We lost the championship from Race 1 until Zandvoort. There were a lot of weekends where we simply weren’t fast enough. Then of course you end up with a big gap.
“We had some good moments after that to get some points back, but it wasn’t enough. That’s how the season goes.”
Verstappen won’t even be interested in discussing the championship heading into Las Vegas now that he’s nearly two wins behind Norris, but he’s willing to challenge for victory if Red Bull can learn from his spectacular race-day comeback in Brazil.
“Let’s not use that word (championship) at the moment because we have too many points to really have a chance. If you look at the season as a whole, we gave away too many points from the beginning to the middle of the season.
“We are now trying to save the highlights until the end, have a good race weekend and see what we can do until the end. I think there is still a lot to analyze from the whole weekend, but at least the race (at Interlagos) was very promising.”
