"I find it really bizarre": Max Verstappen hits back at people criticizing Red Bull

Reigning F1 champion Max Verstappen has hit back at Red Bull critics as the team continues to face criticism from different quarters. The 2024 season had begun on a dominant note. The driver and team had the opposition at an arm's length where the advantage was still enough to comfortably put together wins.

With McLaren bringing its upgrade in Miami, things started to change, with the gap Red Bull enjoyed over the competition dissipating. Furthermore, the inherent lack of understanding the Austrian team had to tackle, as new upgrades were starting to have an inverse impact on car performance.

As the season has progressed, Red Bull has consistently lost out in the battle for performance against its competitors, and in the second half of the season, there were races where the team even had the 4th fastest car. Because of this, the team has already lost the lead in the constructors championship and Max Verstappen is facing a rearguard action from Lando Norris.

The team's decadent run coupled with Red Bull's very public political uproar has meant that the team has been facing a lot of flak for the drop in performance. Max Verstappen has clapped back at the criticism, calling out some very bizarre comments made about the team from different quarters. He told Motorsport.com in an exclusive:

"People always come up with different stuff. I find it really bizarre how they come up with some of these things, but it is what it is. It's part of the game, but I usually just let it go," Verstappen said.

He added,

"I've been in F1 for 10 years now and I'm not wasting time on all those stories. I mean, I barely read anything about F1 anyway. Of course, sometimes I see something or someone else tells me: "Did you see what this and that person said?' But I always say people can think what they want, I'm not going to waste my energy on that. So, I don't really care about what other people say."

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Max Verstappen feels the teams need to focus on themselves

Max Verstappen was questioned on the comments made by Zak Brown as well, where the McLaren boss suggested that Red Bull's struggles meant that quite a few personnel were looking to leave the squad. Talking about what the McLaren boss had said, Verstappen said that teams needed to first focus on what they were doing. He said (via the aforementioned source):

"People that say all sorts of stuff should just focus on their own team. That's nothing specifically against Zak Brown, by the way, it applies to everyone. People just need to focus on themselves, and that's what I'm doing as well."

The last six races are going to be very interesting because it is these races where everything is going to get ramped up. With both championships at stake, teams and drivers will be looking to not leave anything on the table as things heat up.