Ex-F1 driver asserts Max Verstappen has been ‘carrying’ Red Bull amidst recent struggles

Max Verstappen has outscored Sergio Perez twice in the last six races despite struggling with Red Bull's RB20.

Ex-F1 driver asserts Max Verstappen has been ‘carrying’ Red Bull amidst recent struggles

Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen (via IMAGO)

Max Verstappen is the leader of the 2024 driver’s championship and has a 62-point lead over his nearest rival. Sergio Perez, on the other hand, stands seventh in the standings having scored significantly fewer points compared to his teammate. This explains the situation at Red Bull, as its two drivers are often leagues apart. Subsequently, former Red Bull driver Mark Webber asserted that the Dutchman has been carrying the Austrian giant in both championships.

Red Bull began the season as the team to beat. However, this statement soon turned to Max Verstappen as the driver to beat as Sergio Perez failed to score points on multiple occasions when the reigning champion was winning races. This left Red Bull with a single car to fight in the constructor’s championship and aided McLaren and Ferrari to make inroads into its lead.

Witnessing how the majority of the points have been scored by Verstappen, Mark Webber claimed that Red Bull is being carried by the grace of the Dutchman.

Max[Verstappen] has carried that team[Red Bull] for a while now. This season we have seen Barcelona, we have seen Silverstone..., Max's second place[at Silverstone] was top draw. We have seen some very, very, very special drives from Max.
Mark Webber via Formula for Success podcast

The Aussie explained his statement by glancing over some races where Red Bull was not the benchmark. He elaborated on how the 26-year-old was able to turn potentially torrid weekends into race wins while the Mexican was busy fighting at the rear of the pack.

Max Verstappen does not have high expectations from the upcoming races

While Verstappen was able to win races earlier, the Dutchman has finally run into problems with the RB20 and is losing an average of eight points per race to Lando Norris. Moreover, at this pace, he would lose the driver’s title by two points.

Red Bull's Max Verstappen (via IMAGO)
Max Verstappen (via IMAGO)

The Dutchman recently labeled the RB20 a monster and even admitted to not expecting its problems to be solved anytime soon.

I think at the moment on most tracks, it's mainly the balance. Ride can be improved on every single track naturally, But on the street circuits, that really comes out more. At the moment, we are not the fastest car even on a normal track. So I don't expect Singapore to suddenly then be fantastic. It's not going to like swap around in Singapore for us.
Max Verstappen said in an interview as quoted by GPBlog

Verstappen reckoned that balance seems to be the issue with the RB20. So he does not anticipate the issue to be solved quickly as the car has a narrow operating window and the next races being street tracks would amplify this problem even more.

Despite this, the 26-year-old could still hold onto the driver’s title as McLaren is having operational issues in the races. Thus, if the English team wants to aid Norris in the championship, they would have to take the hard call and assign driver roles.

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