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Max Verstappen's P5 at Baku City Circuit was not enough as Red Bull lost their Constructors' Championship lead to McLaren. Currently, the Papayas have a 20-point lead over the Austrian team, but Verstappen is determined to turn the tables in their favor as he sends out a stern warning ahead of the upcoming Singapore GP.
Disaster and underperformance struck Red Bull in Azerbaijan as the defending champions lost their Constructors' Championship lead. Oscar Piastri claimed the victory at Baku, and Lando Norris made a brilliant comeback from P15 to finish at P4 and snatched the lead from Verstappen's team.
Max Verstappen finished the race in P5, whereas Sergio Perez faced a dreadful crash after colliding with Ferrari's Carlos Sainz nearing the end of the race. This resulted in a huge loss of points for the Milton-Keynes-based team and handed Norris a two-place improvement.
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F1 moves to Singapore next for the 18th round of this season, a track that has been a weak spot for Max Verstappen in recent times. Despite this, the three-time world champion is hopeful that his team will be able to turn things around in Singapore City.
"What can I do for Singapore? Well, we're trying to optimise the set-up to understand what we did wrong here. I don't think it's going to be our best track, naturally, but we'll see. It might surprise us," Verstappen said during a media interaction.
"It's never nice to see [McLaren leading the constructors' standings]. But the fight is not over yet. We'll try to get that back," added the Red Bull star.
Red Bull won 21 out of 22 races in the 2023 F2 season, and the only race they missed out on was in Singapore. Verstappen, on the other hand, finished the 2022 and 2023 editions of the Singapore GP in P7 and P5, respectively.
Max Verstappen explained his difficulties in the Azerbaijan GP
Max Verstappen has touched upon the difficulties he faced during the 2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix at Baku. The Red Bull driver qualified in P6 on Saturday but came home in P5 (improved two places because of Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz's crash).
Verstappen seemed helpless against Norris' pace and complained about his car's set-up changes throughout the Grand Prix race. Explaining this, the Dutchman said in the same media interaction:
"I think we just paid the price with the change that we made into qualifying. That made it just really difficult to drive. The car was jumping around a lot. The wheels were coming off the ground in the low-speed corners, so when you don't have a contact patch with the tarmac, it's very difficult."
Max Verstappen continues to lead the F1 Driver's Championship with 313 points. He is followed by Lando Norris with 254 points in P2, and Charles Leclerc with 235 points in P3.
