Verstappen wary 'more performance' required as McLaren threaten

Max Verstappen has insisted that Red Bull needs to "find more performance", with McLaren having caught the Milton Keynes-based squad.

The reigning world champion secured a narrow victory in the Spanish Grand Prix ahead of Lando Norris, who lost the lead immediately from pole following a poor start.

Verstappen required all his talent to maintain an advantage over Norris, who often had fresher tyres and better pace.

Another issue Verstappen had to deal with was his RB20 struggling with tyre degradation, a problem Red Bull rarely has to deal with. 

Whilst he did manage to get the job done, the 26-year-old has acknowledged that Red Bull needs improvements. 

"From my side, I can only, of course, speak about myself," Verstappen told select media including RacingNews365. "And I think we are, of course, struggling a little bit for that outright pace, it felt like. 

"Plus, I feel like we didn't have the best tyre life today compared to Lando. It just seemed like he could push a bit more in some corners. 

"Of course, we were a bit upset at one point with the tyres as well, because he went a bit longer in the first stint. 

"But yeah, we still optimise everything. I mean, I can't really say that we did something wrong in the race, but we just need to try and find more performance."

'Fine margins'

As pointed out by Verstappen, the top step of the podium was decided by "fine margins", just as it has been in recent races. 

Just 0.020s split Norris and Verstappen in qualifying, whilst nothing split the Red Bull driver and George Russell in the fight for pole in Canada.

What concerns Verstappen is Red Bull made no mistakes in Spain, yet McLaren was still right there with them. 

He believes more is possible from the dominant team, with research needing to be conducted ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix to extract additional performance.

"Yeah, it's just fine margins that define the outcome of a weekend," added Verstappen. 

"Naturally in the race, of course, you can't drive like you do in qualifying. But I think the fact is that we would like to be a bit better because I think today we did everything well, but it's tight. 

"We just won again from all the last races that we've won. So yeah, we just need to look into the details what we can do better."