Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen isn’t getting to enjoy the dominance he did in 2023, evidenced again by his close fight with both McLarens in Saturday’s Formula Austrian Grand Prix Sprint and the Dutchman noted how he and the team “really had to fight” for victory.
Verstappen led the Sprint from pole position with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in close pursuit.
The opening half of the Sprint saw the trio engage in a close tussle with Norris lunging on Verstappen successfully down the inside of Turn 3 on Lap 5 before the Red Bull driver replied at Turn 4, allowing Piastri to sweep into second.
Verstappen was able to control proceedings from there to open up a plus four-second margin for victory but admitted it wasn’t all plain sailing.
“Definitely in the beginning it was quite tricky,” said Verstappen.
“I mean, Lando stayed in my DRS and I was just struggling a little bit for grip at that point as well. And yeah, it’s just very difficult to judge around here how much you lose through the corners following and how much you gain with the DRS around the lap, because of course, it’s a triple activation, which is a lot.
“So yeah, we had to really fight for it. We had a few good close battles here and there, defending, overtaking. And basically, once I could clear the DRS and you could settle in a bit more and you could drive around your own pace, but the pace was high.”
Verstappen said he “didn’t expect” Norris to lunge on the inside at Turn 3 at which point he was struggling not only for grip but with clipping (insufficient battery recharge), but was happy to take the position back immediately after losing ground to the McLaren driver.
“I still had, of course, the tow [into Turn 4], not the DRS,” he said. “And yeah, I decided to go back into turn four. And it was good fighting.”
With Piastri getting in on the fight as well Verstappen acknowledged that McLaren “pushed me very hard today in the race” and there’s a high chance the same could occur in Saturday afternoon’s Grand Prix qualifying and Sunday’s main event as well.
“It’s a tight battle,” Verstappen said.
“Ideally, you look in a few details what you can do better. But I need to go back to the team and look back at the race as well as a whole.
“But yeah, always try to look for improvements in the car when you can. And you can change the car around it.”
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