Ferrari manager Frederic Vasseur believes that Max Verstappen is making “more mistakes” now that Red Bull is no longer in its “comfort zone”. Red Bull’s performance has declined in the last three races compared to the start of the season. For instance, Max Verstappen was recently defeated by Charles Leclerc in Monaco and by Lando Norris in Miami.
Frédéric Vasseur, an experienced team manager, is naturally keen to stoke the fire among competitors. The Ferrari team manager has now publicly stated that Verstappen and Red Bull are going through a rough patch, making more mistakes than before.
Frederic Vasseur’s Analysis of Verstappen’s Performance
“I don’t want to draw conclusions from this weekend,” began Vasseur. “But if you look at the past two weekends, Verstappen made more mistakes in Imola than in the past three seasons.”
The three-time world champion had to pull out all the stops at Imola to keep the McLaren drivers off pole. The Dutchman barely won the race by staying just 0.7 seconds ahead of his friend Norris. The tricky balance of the RB20 caused Verstappen to make some mistakes in Italy. In Monaco, he hit the wall during Q1, forcing him to start the race from the sixth position.
Vasseur Refrains from Drawing Conclusions
“As soon as you have to push more, to stay in your comfort zone for the strategy, for everything, you must not make mistakes,” said Vasseur. “I think they were in that situation – but I’m not drawing conclusions. They will be back quickly and strong, and I don’t think all races will be easy until the end.”
“As soon as you are in a position where you need to pay more attention to details, you have a kind of snowball effect – and this is part of the improvement over the past six or seven months,” Vasseur concluded.
