Max Verstappen makes startling admission about F1 title contention after a disappointing weekend in Monza

Max Verstappen has made a startling admission about his F1 title hopes, as he feels that championships are an unrealistic goal for Red Bull right now. The driver started the 2024 F1 season in a dominant fashion when he won five of the first six races. Except for the race in Australia where Max suffered a DNF, the driver had dominated every race without fail.

Things did change, however, in Miami when McLaren introduced its first major upgrade of the season. As soon as the upgrade was introduced, the gap between Red Bull and the competition started to decrease. Lando Norris won the race in Miami, which became a much bigger challenge for Max Verstappen from that point onwards.

Unfortunately for Red Bull, since the race in Miami, the team's performance trajectory has been consistently going downward while rivals have not only caught up but even overhauled them.

The worst representation was in Monza, where the Austrian was quite clearly the fourth-fastest car on the grid, and Max Verstappen had no hope of even fighting for the podium.

Looking ahead to the weekend in Baku, even though Max Verstappen still enjoys a 62-point lead in the championship, the driver made it clear that title contention is an unrealistic target for the team at the moment. As quoted by PlanetF1, he said:

“At the moment, both championships are unrealistic. If we perform like Monza, it’s not realistic. So we definitely need to be better than what we have been delivering lately. We know that. If we can find a better balance with the car, then actually we’ll be more competitive. But if more competitive is enough, I don’t know.”

Max Verstappen addresses 'open door' comments from Aston Martin

Max Verstappen was also questioned about the comments made by Mike Krack about every team in the paddock having an open door for him. The driver, however, admitted that he had no interest in all of these things because they were way into the future. Right now, the focus has to be on the present. He was quoted as saying by the aforementioned publication:

"I have other worries at the moment, that I’m paying a lot of attention to, that I’m working on. So that is something maybe for the future that I think about but not now.”

With Aston Martin also securing the services of Adrian Newey, coupled with what appears to be one of the best facilities in F1, the possibility of a move from Max Verstappen cannot be ruled out.

For the 2024 F1 title fight, Max currently holds a 62-point advantage over Lando Norris with just eight races left. The McLaren driver needs eight points per race over Verstappen to win the title this season. Ironically, that's exactly the number of points that Norris has scored in the last two races, and that might be something playing in the mind of the Dutch racer as he heads to Baku.