VILLENEUVE: “VERSTAPPEN ISN’T EVEN AGGRESSIVE ANYMORE, DESPITE NOT WINNING”
The situation of Max Verstappen has been questioned by former F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve.
Jacques Villeneuve believes that “something has changed” in Max Verstappen, who he claims is “not even aggressive” as he continues to see his lead in the F1 championship diminish. Red Bull driver Verstappen had a tough race in Baku, finishing fifth while struggling with a poor car. Verstappen climbed two places due to a crash involving his teammate Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz from Ferrari.
Verstappen’s championship rival Lando Norris, who shockingly failed to progress past Q1 in the qualifying sessions, started the race from 15th position but managed to pass the Dutch driver and finish fourth. This result reduced Verstappen’s championship lead to 59 points, and Norris has cut into his championship advantage for the third consecutive race.
1997 F1 world champion Villeneuve questioned Verstappen’s recent struggles. Villeneuve told Sky Sports F1, “Max hasn’t been heard from for the last few races. He’s not even aggressive in the race and is not fighting hard.”
“We can barely hear him on the radio. Something has changed. It seems like he knows he hasn’t won for a while and the car isn’t working the way he wants.”
“Now his teammate is much faster than him. This is a very strange situation,” he said.
Three-time world champion Verstappen noted that changes made before the qualifying sessions made the RB20 “worse.”
Verstappen told the media, “I think we paid the price for the changes we made before the qualifying sessions. This really made the car difficult to drive.”
“The car was bouncing a lot, and the wheels were coming off the ground in the corners. It’s very difficult when you don’t have contact with the asphalt.”
“You always try to make changes to improve the car, but unfortunately, what we did made things worse.”
“The overall behavior with the new floor is better. Unfortunately, we made some wrong decisions entering qualifying and paid the price for that,” he said.
