Max Verstappen blamed a single pre-qualifying setup gamble for having his championship advantage over Lando Norris shaved again at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, but was looking on the bright side nevertheless as his rival also finished off the podium.
Verstappen qualified an underwhelming sixth but had an open goal to add points to his advantage over title rival Lando Norris, who was knocked out of qualifying in 17th. But not only did the Dutchman struggle to move forward in the race, he was also passed by Norris at the end of the latter’s mammoth recovery drive in the final laps of the day.
The pair finished fourth and fifth, and with Norris also taking a point for fastest lap, Verstappen saw his advantage shrink to 59 points, down from 62 ahead of the weekend.
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“I think we just paid the price with the changes that we made into qualifying,” Verstappen lamented. “That just made it really difficult to drive.
“The car was jumping around a lot. The wheels were coming off the ground in the corners. When you don’t have a contact patch with the tarmac, it’s very difficult.
“You win and lose as a team. We thought it would be a good direction to go into and in the end it wasn’t.”
Red Bull Racing also lost control of the constructors’ championship for the first time since the 2022 Miami Grand Prix, with Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez crashing out with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in the final laps.
“Of course it’s never nice to see that,” Verstappen said. “It didn’t help what happened with Checo and Carlos. I’m sure that we can do better. The fight is not over yet. We’ll try to get that back.”
Despite his frustration, Verstappen identified several positives from the afternoon, including his teammate’s form, with the Mexican having looked certain for a podium trophy before his late crash.
“I think we learned a lot,” he said. “Today showed with Checo, when he was a bit happier and the car was performing a bit better, we are in that fight,” he said. “OK, we didn’t win, but we were in that fight with Checo, so I think from now on we can be in that fight if we keep improving the car step-by-step.”
He also took heart that McLaren couldn’t execute the sort of flawless weekend required for Norris to overhaul him in the title standings. The Briton now needs an average of more than eight points per round to win the title by Abu Dhabi — more than the difference in points between first and second, meaning Norris’s championship hopes are now no longer totally in his own hands.
“I think [McLaren] could have done a better job,” he said. “I think if we do a better job ourselves, they need to have a perfect end to the year.
“It was probably positive [as a result] for me. I would of course have liked to extend the gap, but with our race today I’m still happy that it was only that.”