"A bit too slow" - Max Verstappen laments as Red Bull on the backfoot at F1 Dutch GP weekend 

"A bit too slow" was the verdict from Max Verstappen as Red Bull started the 2024 F1 Dutch GP on the back foot. Zandvoort is the Dutch driver's home race, and he has been dominant at this track. The race rejoined the calendar in 2021 and has since had three editions, with Max winning all of them.

This weekend as well, Verstappen was the favorite heading into the F1 Dutch GP. After the first two sessions of running, that idea might be changing. After the first session, which was more or less not representative because of the wet conditions, the second session was dry and Red Bull was quite comfortably outpaced by both Mercedes and McLaren.

Verstappen was only P5 on his soft tire run and even on the long runs, it did appear that Red Bull did not have the legs on the competition.

After the two sessions, the Red Bull driver was asked about his verdict on the day , to which he responded saying the car was "a bit too slow". He told F1.com,

“Of course, in FP1 I didn’t really get a lot of running in. I guess in FP2 you could see a little bit more where you are. [We’re] a bit too slow on the short run, a bit too slow on the long run, so a bit of work to do."

He added,

“At the moment, [there’s] no clear answer of how to improve that specifically, but we’ll look into things. Just a bit too slow, as simple as that.”

The driver did however reveal that this was something that had been the case for the last few races and was not a surprise. The focus would be on finding some more performances for Sunday, he added:

It’s where we’ve been the last few races, so it’s not really a surprise. We’ll try to just find a little bit more performance for Sunday.”

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Max Verstappen's teammate Sergio Perez slightly more optimistic about Red Bull's performance

Max Verstappen's teammate Sergio Perez was slightly more confident than the former about what Red Bull could achieve this weekend. The Mexican felt that since the team had been very focused on testing new parts, not everything was optimized yet. He said,

"We’ve been testing quite a bit of stuff out there. I think our day looks a little bit better than it shows in terms of order. I did a mistake into Turn 12, I went off, so I lost a couple of tenths."

Perez was around half a second slower than his teammate after the soft tire runs. The Mexican is racing for his career in the next few races, and being close to Verstappen in performance would be at the top of his priorities this weekend.