Verstappen rues ‘very obvious’ Red Bull limitation after Dutch GP podium

Max Verstappen had “hoped for a little bit more” from the Dutch Grand Prix and conceded that Red Bull’s limitations were “very obvious” despite finishing second at Zandvoort.

Verstappen continued his streak of always finishing inside the top two positions at his home race after a late reliability problem for championship-chasing Lando Norris promoted the Dutchman onto the second step of the podium.

Although satisfied with the outcome, Verstappen reflected that the flow of the race highlighted areas of weakness with the RB21.

“We take it,” said Verstappen. “Qualifying on Saturday was good. I hoped for a little bit more in the race, but quite quickly I realised that the pace was not there. It always seems like in the race, we just seem to struggle more than over one lap, just with the tyre behaviour with the car, and that was very obvious again.

“I just tried to manage my pace, but that basically meant that it was more of a fight with the cars behind me than whatever was happening in front of me.”

Verstappen had made a strong start to the race, running side-by-side with Norris around the first two corners, before managing to recover a wild slide into Turn 3 to gain the position.

“There is always a lot of sand in that corner from the middle of the track to the edge, but with the softer compound, I pushed the entry,” he said. “Then I went a bit sideways heading into Turn 3, but it was all okay.”

Asked how confident he had been of keeping McLaren driver Norris behind, Verstappen added: “Not at all, but I still want to have a bit of fun out there.

“When I got ahead, I just followed my pace, and that meant that at one point, Lando got ahead again. You could see that [the McLaren] was a different league, so there is no point ruining your own race trying to defend really hard or trying to lose two or three laps defending for your life. There is, unfortunately, no point in that.”

Meanwhile, in positive news for Red Bull, Verstappen’s team mate Tsunoda returned to the points for this first time since Imola, with a P9 finish at Zandvoort.