Max Verstappen insists Red Bull is not ‘compromising’ its focus on the 2022 rules changes in its bid to beat Mercedes to this year’s Formula 1 title.
Ahead of the all-new technical regulations arriving next year, several teams have already abandoned developing their current cars to switch attention to designing their 2022 challengers.
Following a fourth straight defeat to Red Bull in Sunday’s Styrian Grand Prix, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff revealed his team won’t bring any more upgrades for the rest of the season.
When Wolff’s comments were put to Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, he didn’t believe its main championship rival would simply stop development with a long way to go in the title battle.
Verstappen’s victory at the Red Bull Ring saw him extend his championship lead to 18 points over Lewis Hamilton, with Red Bull on a four-race winning streak.
While Red Bull has stressed it will continue bring updates to the RB16B, Verstappen backed his team’s aggressive approach even if it could harm its 2022 chances.
“Of course, I don’t know what’s going on with other teams, I know from our side we do improve our car almost every race, which I think is very important because we have a good opportunity to have a good season,” Verstappen said, as quoted by Crash.net
“I’m confident with the people that we have in the team. Also with the for next year is 100%. I think so far, I don’t see that compromise. Of course, time will tell, next year, if it’s like that. But I’m fully agreeing with the approach that we have for this season.”
Verstappen’s 14th career win was his biggest winning margin, finishing 35 seconds ahead of Hamilton at the chequered flag.
But despite his winning form, the Dutchman is still focusing on “little details” as he eyes further improvements in the coming races.
“We do have a very good package but I want to see it every single weekend because every track is different,” Verstappen said.
“It’s still about finding the perfect set up on the car because it can be quite sensitive in some areas to make it work, it’s never good enough so I always want to try and improve every single weekend.
“Even a weekend like this, it looks amazing, we won by a big margin, but it’s never good enough. So we just look into the details, what we can do better and when we go to other tracks again I don’t expect it to be like today.
“We have to just keep being very focused in what we have to do. So far I’m very happy with how it’s been going, but like I said, it’s never good enough.”
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