Verstappen says Red Bull must be 'competitive from the start' in 2020

Max Verstappen targets a strong start to the 2020 Formula One championship after a slow start to 2019 cost him any chance of mounting a championship charge.

Despite consistently finishing inside of the top four across the season, including in each of the first six Grand Prix of the year, Red Bull were unable to compete with Mercedes in the early stages of the season.

In the first five races, Mercedes scored one-two results without fail, taking until the seventh race, the Canadian Grand Prix, for only one Mercedes driver to stand on the podium and until the eleventh, the German Grand Prix, for them to fail altogether.

Verstappen has said that a championship assault can only be properly attempted if his team are competitive from the first race in Australia.

“The target for the whole team is… to fight for the championship and do better than last year, and be there from the first race onwards, because that’s really where you have to start performing," Verstappen told Formula1.com. "We’re on a good way, the team is very motivated, worked very hard over the winter as well, so I just can’t wait to get started.

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“I’m just looking forward [to the season] and hope that we can be competitive from the start – and then it can be a really interesting and fun year.”

In the latter stages of the 2019 season, Verstappen was able to compete with the Silver Arrows and, had the season begun in Germany, the Dutchman would have finished just two points behind Valtteri Bottas.

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