“I would like to win races”: Max Verstappen eyeing “a perfect end” to the season despite championship lead over Lando Norris

Max Verstappen believes the championship lead of 70 points over Lando Norris cannot be taken for granted. Speaking to media including Sportskeeda ahead of the 2024 Italian GP, the Red Bull F1 champion reiterated t need to turn around the performance at a critical phase in the season.

Despite the points lead in the driver’s championship, Max Verstappen was alarmed by the gap to McLaren in track performance in Zandvoort. Beaten on home ground where he has won thrice before, the reigning champion issued a warning to his team that both the drivers and constructors championship could be under threat.

The dominance of the McLaren was a role reversal from the dominance of the RB19 at Zandvoort last year.

Max Verstappen felt that nine races were enough for a margin of 70 points to diminish and the lead in the driver’s championship couldn’t be taken for granted. He felt that the 2023 season was a standalone scenario where he could dominate the season in the RB19.

Although he still enjoyed fighting for the win, he reiterated his need to win more. His last victory was the 2024 Spanish GP. However, that has been his only victory since the Imola GP in May.

Asked by Sportskeeda if the lead in the championship was encouraging going into the Monza weekend, Max Verstappen said:

“Yeah but you cant just calculate it like that. I mean, I would like to win races. Otherwise, you know, it's still nine races and some sprint races. So these kind of things can easily be, of course, overturned. But I also know that you need to have a perfect end to the season and that I think is very hard.”

Asked if he was comfortable and still enjoying the season, Max Verstappen replied:

“I am enjoying it. yeah. Would I like to win more? Yes, of course. But I also knew that a season like we had last year is very unrealistic. But did I expect it to be like this? Not really, with of course how we ended and how we started. So now it's up to us to just try and make it better. But I know that everyone was working flat out to make it better.”

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Max Verstappen is worried about the championship with Red Bull’s car performance

Max Verstappen believes that the car's performance remains out of his hands but he will try to give his best from the driver’s side. However, the reigning champion was unsure of the external factors beyond his control that could influence the results. He felt that the Zandvoort weekend was not the best of race weekends and Red Bull will try their best to recover from it. Finding gains and performance from the RB20 has been an uphill climb for the reigning champions. After the Dutch GP, the triple world champion complained about the car not responding to his inputs.

Asked how concerned he was about the championship, Max Verstappen said:

“Listen, I just do the best I can. If I win it or not, it's not going to change my life. Would I like to win it? Yes, of course. But it's not, yeah, It's not in my hands with the performance of the car, because I just try to do the best I can, try to give feedback, try to make it faster. If that's going to be enough to the end of the year, I don't know. But I do know that, yeah, we're going to give it everything we have as a team to try and be more competitive than what we showed, of course, in Zandvoort, because that was, I think, just a very poor weekend for us, And just go from there.”

As it stands, Red Bull leads the constructors championship by 46 points and Max Verstappen leads the driver’s championship with a margin of 70 points.

Given the close margins in the constructors, it will be imperative for Red Bull to turn around their performance soon. The team has brought minor updates to Monza which is a new front wing and a new rear wing.

However, their rivals Mercedes and Ferrari have brought heavily upgraded cars to Monza and could factor into the mix with them and McLaren at the front.