Max Verstappen puts Christian Horner on alert with damning six-word Italian GP verdict
Max Verstappen suffered another frustrating weekend at the Italian Grand Prix, and he didn't hold back after the race.
'We were in no man's land' was the assessment of Max Verstappen after another frustrating weekend for Red Bull at the Italian Grand Prix on Sunday.
The Dutchman started from seventh on the grid and gained a place on George Russell after the Brit ran straight on at Turn One on the opening lap, but struggled to make any further inroads.
His afternoon was nearly made even worse as a botched pit stop cost him six seconds during the first round of stops. Fortunately, he emerged from the pits ahead of Sergio Perez.
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In many regards, Verstappen was fortunate that the damage done to his Drivers' Championship lead wasn't more significant, with Lando Norris only able to finish third behind Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri.
This was of little consolation to Verstappen though, who sent a clear message to team principal Christian Horner in his Sky Sports F1 interview. "I thought we got the most out of the car in terms of position but not in the way we approached the race," he fumed.
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"The pace was not strong enough so we had to do our own race and had a bad pit stop. I think strategy-wise we didn't optimise it. Some cars did a one-stop and we did a two-stop which was not the best.
"For most of the race, we couldn't run full engine power because of a problem so that doesn't help. All in all a bad race. It would still have been a bad race with full engine power but we may have been more competitive.
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"We were in no man's land. If we don't change anything on the car it is all going to be bad from now on to the end of the season. We have a lot of work to do."
The consequences of Red Bull's struggles have been disastrous in both World Championships. The reigning champions are now just eight points clear of McLaren, while Norris closed to within 62 points in the Drivers' Championship.
