Max Verstappen has urged his Red Bull team to perform even better when the Formula 1 season resumes, despite healthy leads in both World Championships. Reigning World Champion Verstappen won eight of 13 races in the first half of the 2022 campaign, with teammate Sergio Perez adding one more, to leave Red Bull 93 points clear of Ferrari's total of 334 as they seek a first Constructors' crown since '13. After various incidents and blunders at Ferrari, their lead driver Charles Leclerc now sits 80 points behind Verstappen with nine races to go when the season continues at the Belgian Grand Prix. Although he is moving closer to a second world title, Verstappen has cautioned Red Bull not to slack off and to continue to push as hard as they have been.
Verstappen wants more from Red Bull
"I think as a team we still want to win more races and that's what we'll definitely try to do and after the break," he told media including RacingNews365.com . Referring to his engine problem during qualifying in Hungary, Verstappen continued: "It is a great lead that we have, but we cannot have too many days [like Saturday]. "We also had a few little issues with the clutch in the upshifts [in the race], which was not great to drive [with]. "Overall, of course it is good, but we [will] just keep on working and keep on trying to improve things."
Red Bull not as dominant as they seem
Although Red Bull have nine wins to Ferrari's four, the RB18 has not been as dominant as it seems by looking at the results. The F1-75 machine has shown similar speed to the Red Bull, but Ferrari's continued lack of reliability, strategic errors and driver blunders mean they are not executing races as strongly as Red Bull – hence the gulf between them. This is something Verstappen was keen to emphasise, believing Ferrari just made the "wrong call" on tyres in Budapest. "Of course, we know that our car in general is quick, but I think throughout the race Ferrari was also very fast," he pointed out. "They just made the wrong call with the Hard tyre. It is about choosing the right tyres at the right time. "There's still a lot of things we can look into and [that] we can do better. "Starting 10th and winning the race on a track like this is very, very good, but [there's] a lot of things we will analyse and look into [to see] what we could have done better."
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