Max Verstappen blasts 'not ideal' Red Bull spending spree in worrying Horner verdict
Max Verstappen was extremely frustrated in Monza as Red Bull's struggles were exacerbated.
Max Verstappen has criticised Red Bull’s decision not to bring a Monza-specific rear-wing to the Italian Grand Prix. Teams often develop unique rear wings for this race given the unique characteristics of the circuit and the need for ultimate efficiency through high-speed corners and straights.
Red Bull opted against this approach in 2024, and it cost them dearly. With Ferrari’s new upgrades boosting their performance and Mercedes also boasting strong pace, the reigning world champions were the fourth-fastest team in qualifying.
The outcome of that pecking order was a seventh-place qualifying result for Verstappen, with team-mate Sergio Perez one place behind in P8. The Dutchman’s championship rival, Lando Norris, secured pole position with his colleague Oscar Piastri alongside him.
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“Although it doesn’t help here that we don’t have a special Monza rear wing,” Verstappen said when assessing his qualifying woes. “That’s not ideal, considering the top speed. We never had that in the past years either, but then, the car was good enough to compensate for that.
“Now it’s something we might have to do next year. Now the team has made a different choice and they’d rather spend the money on something else. But if you already have problems with the car, this makes it even worse. But of course, it’s not our only problem.”
Even more concerning for Red Bull than their qualifying performance was the fact that neither Verstappen nor team principal Christian Horner understood the reasons why they struggled so much relative to McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes in Monza.
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"The balance just isn't there, you can hear from Max's comments,” Horner told Sky Sports F1 after qualifying. “Something is there fundamentally happening that we are not on top of. Q2 didn't look took too bad but in Q3 we were miles away.
"We are looking at everything. We ran older spec last week to see if that redressed the issues but the reality was we still had the same handling characteristics and issues.
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“We need to address it quickly as McLaren have made a significant step over the last few races and we are now behind Ferrari and Mercedes as well. Something is clearly not working on the car. There will be an engineering solution to an engineering problem."
While there is seemingly no end in sight to Red Bull’s struggles, McLaren are going from strength to strength. Norris’ pole position on Saturday marked the first back-to-back poles for the team since Lewis Hamilton achieved the feat back in 2012.
