Mercedes have already won the constructors’ championship of the 2020 Formula 1 season, with the W11 so much better than the rest of the cars on the grid. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen has spoken about just how much better that car is than the others by claiming that most drivers would win races if they were behind that wheel.
Verstappen has been able to win with his Red Bull as he and Pierre Gasly are the only two drivers to have won a Grand Prix this season not in a Mercedes. They’ve won one race each, while the other 11 of the 13 races held so far have been won by either Lewis Hamilton (nine) or Valtteri Bottas (two).
“I’m not frustrated about that,” he said in an interview on the Formula 1 website, when asked about Mercedes’ dominance being combined with Hamilton’s excellent form.
“I have a lot of respect for what they’ve achieved. I’m not frustrated about Lewis in a Mercedes car. To be honest, 90 percent of the field could win in that car. Nothing against Lewis, he’s a great driver, but the car is so dominant.
“OK, maybe others wouldn’t be as dominant as Lewis is, but you accept the situation you are in and you just try to make the best of it. I’m not frustrated, I’m more focused on what can we do to try and beat them.”
Things to improve
Rather than hope that Mercedes suffer a dropoff, everyone at Red Bull is working to make their car faster.
“There are quite a few things [to improve],” Verstappen said. “First of all, we are always too slow at the beginning [of the season], so we need to make sure we have a car that hits the ground running and is a lot more competitive.
“How to do that? Clearly we haven’t found it, so we need to change our approach. We need to find a different way of working. In terms of operations, we are good. We have really good pitstops, we’re good at strategy. I don’t think there are a lot of things that go wrong there. Besides that, clearly this year we were lacking in power. There are quite a few things we have to work on to be able to fight them.”
A reality check
While there is always optimism ahead of a new season, the Dutch driver thinks it might not be possible to challenge Mercedes until 2022. “Personally I don’t think we will because of all the limitations we have at the moment in terms of what you can develop on the car,” he said when asked if he thinks they can really challenge in 2021.
“Maybe some other people in the team will say something different. From my side I’m just realistic, I don’t think we can. So next year will be another tough one. Hopefully we’ll be a bit better, but it will still be difficult to beat the Mercedes.”