Max Verstappen believes Red Bull no longer has the same margin of error it enjoyed at the start of the season.
Max Verstappen has issued a new standard for Red Bull, insisting the team can no longer afford to make errors.
The 26-year-old feels that whilst the fight at the sharp end of F1 is keeping the Milton Keynes squad honest, it must eradicate mistakes as “every little detail matters now” in an increasingly competitive field.
McLaren, Ferrari and recently Mercedes’ improvements has meant Red Bull must battle harder for wins now then at any point over the past two years. Not since the early stages of the 2022 season has the team found itself with a rival capable of winning races consistently. Right now it looks to have at least two, maybe three.
With the performance gap to the teams behind smaller, and its margin for error reduced, Verstappen is clear that Red Bull does not have room for mistakes, in what he contends will be a closer fight across the rest of the season – even if the races are more entertaining.
“It’s definitely more challenging,” the Dutchman told media including RacingNews365 when quizzed on whether the increased competition made things more exciting for him.
“And I think also with, of course, how the race [the Canadian Grand Prix] was, it was very exciting in general. And it definitely keeps us on our toes. We cannot afford to make mistakes or tiny mistakes anymore. So, yeah, every little detail matters now.”
‘We always want the two cars to be up there’
After the Monaco Grand Prix, where Verstappen and Red Bull struggled throughout, the gap in the constructors’ championship stood at just 24 points to the nearest rival Ferrari.
In Montreal, due to the Italian team’s dismal weekend, and even though Sergio Perez failed to score for the second round in a row, Red Bull was able to extend its lead to 49 points.
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