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Laurence Edmondson, F1 Editor
MONZA, Italy — Max Verstappen is targeting a fourth world title this year, but said the outcome of the championship — win or lose — “will not change my life.”
The Red Bull driver has a 70-point lead over Lando Norris with nine races remaining, but finished the last race at the Dutch Grand Prix 22 seconds adrift of the McLaren driver.
Asked ahead of this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix if McLaren’s performance advantage in Zandvoort had made him concerned about his championship chances, Verstappen said: “Listen – I just do the best I can. If I win it or not, it’s not going to change my life.
“Would I like to win it? Yes, of course. But it’s not in my hands, with the performance of the car. I just try to do the best I can, try to give feedback, try to make it faster.
“If it’s going to be enough to the end of the year, I don’t know.
“But I do know that we’re going to give it everything we have as a team, to try and be more competitive than what we showed, of course, in Zandvoort, because that was I think just a very poor weekend for us. And just go from there.”
Verstappen struggled with the handling of his car in Zandvoort — a problem that was exacerbated by strong winds and limited practice time due to wet weather.
The issues, which have been present for several races, continued despite Red Bull rolling back the specification of the floor on Verstappen’s car to better understand why upgrades had not resulted in the desired performance on track.
The result in Zandvoort was described as “alarming” by Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko, but Verstappen played down the significance of the single race.
“I wouldn’t want to call it a wake-up call,” he added. “Just not the best weekend for us for different reasons.
“We couldn’t just get the car to work how we wanted it. Probably the wind made it very difficult for our car, with the balance issues that we have.
“And yeah, it’s just not the strongest weekend.”
Going into this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, Verstappen has not won a race for five consecutive rounds.
Red Bull’s downturn in performance follows a record-breaking year in 2023 — in which the team won 21 of 22 races — as well as seven wins from the first ten races of 2024.
“Would I like to win more? Yes, of course,” Verstappen added. “But I also knew that a season like we had last year is very unrealistic.
“But did I expect it like this? Not really — of course, with how we ended and how we started. So now it’s up to us to just try and make it better.
“But I know that everyone is working flat out to make it better.”