Martin Brundle believes Max Verstappen eased off during the Dutch Grand Prix to send Red Bull a message.
The triple world champion finished second at Zandvoort, over 22 seconds adrift of race winner Lando Norris.
However, Brundle feels the Dutchman was strategically and deliberately not firing on all cylinders in order to "give the factory a hurry up".
It was the largest winning margin of the season, and the Milton Keynes squad have questions to answer ahead of the next round, at Monza.
“We need to understand where the deficit is,” Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said on Sky Sports F1 after the reigning constructors' champion's lead in the standings was slashed to just 30 points.
“I think we’ve learned quite a lot this weekend, but you can see the pace that they [McLaren] had at this track was outstanding, so we need to obviously understand how we can improve performance on our car.”
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Red Bull began the current season with a sizeable advantage over the chasing pack. It appeared 2024 would go the way of the previous campaign, but McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes have out-developed the energy drinks manufacturer.
The upgrades Red Bull has delivered have so far proven insufficient and there is the growing sentiment that the Verstappen camp is growing impatient.
After Horner's remarks, when Brundle was asked, also on Sky Sports F1, what those learnings might entail, the 65-year-old responded: “I’m going to guess about car setup and strategies and all the normal things about going racing.
“I would hazard a guess that that was not as fast as Max [Verstappen] could go.
“He knew he couldn’t beat Lando [Norris] and dropping back a bit like that, it’s going to give the factory a hurry up, isn’t it? I’d be pretty sure of that.”
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