Max Verstappen admits tyre struggle in F1 Spanish GP especially against Lando Norris, as Christian Horner reflects on close battle.

Much like the last few races, Red Bull wasn’t the dominant force in F1 Spanish GP as well. There was constant fear of losing out even though Verstappen stretched out some lead in the front after passing Mercedes’ George Russell for the lead.

There was certain amount of nervousness simply because McLaren and Lando Norris were pushing with seemingly better tyre performance too. Having had the liberty of better degradation in the last few seasons, Red Bull hit with tyre degradation in Spain.

There were constant radio calls to Verstappen in the closing stages to continue pushing ahead, as the Dutchman admitted to tyre not performing to the optimum. “It wasn’t straightforward,” he said. “I mean, at the start, I think it was quite critical to get ahead of Lando,  looking at it now. Of course, at the time, you just tried to do what you think is best and how it works out.

“And then I think also what was very important was getting ahead of George, so that first stint that I could eke out a bit of a gap. And I think that all worked well. Then I think we were quite aggressive on the strategy as a team with our pit stops. So I think as a whole package, performance, we had a good race. We really tried to maximise everything

“But I do think that we’re struggling a bit for the optimum pace, lacking a bit of tyre deg towards the end of every stint. So it wasn’t a very straightforward, easy race. I mean, Lando was catching quite hard at the end. But luckily, it worked out that it was just enough. From my side, I can only, of course, speak about myself.

“And I think we are, of course, struggling a little bit for that outright pace, it felt like. Plus, I feel like we didn’t have the best tyre life today compared to Lando. It just seemed like he could push a bit more in some corners. Of course, we were a bit upset at one point with the tyres as well, because he went a bit longer in the first stint.

“But yeah, we still optimise everything. I mean, I can’t really say that we did something wrong in the race, but we just need to try and find more performance,” summed up Verstappen, who had drive his skin out. During the weekend, he noted about having to drive at 101% in order to beat his competition.

With the growing competition from McLaren and even Ferrari and Mercedes, Verstappen knows that he will have to be at his best. He concedes that the updates they have at Red Bull hasn’t worked as good as it has for rivals from Woking thus far.

“It’s just fine margins that define the outcome of a weekend,” said Verstappen. “Naturally in the race, of course, you can’t drive like you do in qualifying. But I think the fact is that we would like to be a bit better because I think we did everything well, but it’s tight. We just won again from all the last races that we’ve won.

“So yeah, we just need to look into the details what we can do better. For one year we dominated in Barcelona, because I think in 2022, we were not the quickest. Ferrari was the quickest. And last year, I think we were quite good. But I think Mercedes was actually quite decent at that time of the year.

“So yeah, that’s been good for us, but nothing particularly amazing. So I always knew that it was going to be very close. And McLaren is just doing a really, really good job. They have brought a lot of good updates to their car, and it really just seems to work. And from our side, we have brought things to the car, but probably not as much lap time as what others have been bringing to their car.

“So now it’s up to us to try and find a bit more, try to get that little jump ahead again. Because I think clearly today, we just lacked a bit of that outright pace, but also just when we had to push, we just couldn’t look after the tyres like Lando, for example, could. So these kind of things are quite crucial on most of the tracks where you have a bit of deg. So yeah, we need to try and be better on that,” summed up Verstappen.

Before going into the race in detail, Red Bull chief Horner explained the radio message made to Verstappen in the latter stages to push and why it was needed. “You can see that too, the guys were going flat out and because we get the GPS data as all the teams do of the other cars you can see,” he started.