Shortly after smashing the competition with a grand slam victory in the 2024 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix, Max Verstappen claimed Red Bull’s rivals “are closer” than last year.
The three-time World Champion took pole position, the fastest lap and led every lap en route to winning Saturday’s race in Bahrain, ending with a 22s margin over teammate Sergio Perez in second.
Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz was the closest challenger in third, 25.1s off of the victorious Dutchman.
But despite this chasm between Red Bull and the Scuderia, Verstappen isn’t being complacent.
“In general, other teams are closer,” Verstappen told media including Motorsport Week in Saturday’s podium press conference.
“I just think that today, everything just worked really, really well.
“Of course don’t expect that to happen every single Grand Prix.
“Still, we take it, we look back at it, of course, we analyze it, and we’ll try to improve further.”
After qualifying on Friday, George Russell gauged Verstappen would be 0.5s a lap quicker than his rivals, a claim the Dutchman dismissed at the time but was ultimately proved right after 57 laps of running in Sakhir.
Verstappen couldn’t specify exactly why this gap compared to his rivals – speculating on fuel loads and other mitigating factors, as opposed to the dominance he displayed in the new RB20.
“I don’t know how they approach their long runs, you know, with fuel loads and whatever,” he said.
“But from our side, it was definitely not expected to be half a second ahead, it was probably a bit better than I thought today.
“Today everything just went really well. The balance, the feeling for myself and the car and that is not always like that.”
Looking back to qualifying, Verstappen referenced the tight competition over a single lap as to why he feels the field is tightening up, despite his ability to extract a significant winning margin come race day.
The Dutchman feels the RB20’s weakness, if it can be called that given he claimed pole, is in its one-lap performance.
“I think in the race we’re still very strong, but if you look at qualifying, I of course put it on pole, but the fast lap was done in Q2 by Charles [Leclerc], you know, so over one lap, I don’t think it’s that straightforward,” he said.
“We are just not that great on one lap performance for whatever reason with the car, but luckily it’s very good in the race for most tracks.
“It just seems like other teams can maybe extract a little bit more over one lap than us for whatever reason. So that’s what we’ll look at for the coming races.
“I really think that also just the circumstances today with the wind helped us out a bit more compared to the last two days.”
Looking ahead to the second round of the 2024 season in Jeddah, Verstappen isn’t making any promises for a repeat domination.
A different track surface, less abrasive than Bahrain and a sequence of repetitive high-speed corners means the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is a very different proposition and one the Dutchman isn’t ruling out being a closer run affair.
It’s because of this that he doesn’t see Bahrain being the template for a walkover season like in 2023, where he won 19 of the 22 races scheduled.
“I go race by race because there are so many different scenarios,” Verstappen said.
“This is a very particular track, probably one of our strongest.
“I just want to now focus on what to improve from this race onwards and then look at Jeddah, how we prepare there.
“It’s a completely different track layout, with a lot more high-speed corners.
“The tarmac, of course, is completely different to what it is here, so less degradation.
“Naturally, probably that will help other teams as well, compared to us.”
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