Red Bull must improve ‘every aspect’ of 2019 F1 car - Verstappen

Max Verstappen says Red Bull must improve “every single aspect” of its 2019 Formula 1 car if it is to challenge championship leaders Mercedes. 

Red Bull currently sits third in the constructors’ championship, while Verstappen is fourth in the drivers’ standings after collecting two podiums and finishing inside the top five at all six races so far this season. 

But despite his strong start to the season, the Dutchman is already 59 points behind championship leader Lewis Hamilton, with Red Bull trailing Mercedes by a whopping 147 points. 

“We have to improve on every single aspect if we really want to challenge Mercedes,” Verstappen said. 

"If we fully understood why we would have made the changes already. You always want more downforce, everybody does, it’s never enough. 

“I think we already had some tracks with straights in it,” he added. “We know that Ferrari for example as great top speed so for them naturally this becomes a better track. 

“If we compare it to Monaco it should be not as good for us but we will find out. 

“I’m not massively worried about it, because at the end of the day you can only control what you can control.”

Verstappen said it was too early to completely rule Red Bull out of contention this weekend and insisted the top speed difference to Mercedes and Ferrari is not a “big, big deficit”. 

“First we have to wait and see how quick we are because at the moment it’s just speculation,” he explained. 

“Maybe it’s better than expected, you never know. We don’t have a big, big deficit. We know that we are not the quickest but we’ll try to fine-tune everything.”

While Red Bull is expected to run less downforce in Montreal to compensate for its lack of straight-line speed compared to its rivals, Verstappen is convinced Honda’s gains have enabled the team to be less extreme than in previous years. 

“In general the more power you have the more dirty downforce you can stick on,” he added. 

“I think that is fair to say but most of the tracks you still have some other cars running more downforce than us but I don’t think it is as extreme as we had in 2016.”