Max Verstappen: Red Bull have foundation in place for championship win

Max Verstappen

Verstappen: Red Bull have foundation in place for championship win

Martin Macdonald

Tuesday 7 January 2020 14:00

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Max Verstappen believes that Red Bull are now in a position to fight for the constructors’ championship, but stresses that they must hit the ground running when the new season commences.

The Dutchman enjoyed the best campaign of his career in 2019, winning the races in Austria, Germany, and Brazil before finishing third in the driver’s championship.

Even though third was a career-best, he was still well off the pace of Lewis Hamilton in first, while Red Bull trailed Mercedes by a significant points gap, too.

Now, however, he thinks the team can emerge as legitimate contenders.

"I think so,” he replied to Autosport when asked if Red Bull now have the foundations in place to mount a title assault.

"I think we are in the right direction. There's no question about that.

"Now, it's just about how much development we can push through. I more or less know, I just hope it's going to be enough.

"There are no real changes in the regulations anyway, so you can just build on what you have now. And with a second year working with Honda, I think that should help.

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"We massively improved the performance of the engine. I think we know where we have to improve on, we've already improved on the car."

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Red Bull’s new-found performance has come from their partnership with Honda, but it naturally took a while in 2019 for it to flourish after a few teething problems initially.

With the awkward beginning phase out of the way, Verstappen insists Red Bull must start 2020 better than 2019.

"We know that we have to be there from the start if you want to fight for the championship," he stressed.

"[My] consistency [in 2019] overall was good. I think as a team we did a good job as well.

"We most of the time maximised the result. It was the only thing we could do, especially in the beginning, [when] we couldn't really fight for wins.

"But we're still overtaking Ferraris, when we're actually slower, or doing a better strategy, stuff like that.

"So if we can keep that up, then we can have a strong year next year."