What Jos Verstappen told Ralf Schumacher about Red Bull’s troubles

Ralf Schumacher has revealed Jos Verstappen privately told him that he couldn’t “imagine how difficult” Red Bull is finding it to get the RB21 and its tyres into an optimal operating window.

Red Bull had a mixed weekend at the Brazilian Grand Prix where Max Verstappen was once again the team’s sole points-scorer, bringing his car home in fourth place in the Sprint and third in the grand prix.

Ralf Schumacher: I spoke with Jos…

The latter, though, looked very unlikely.

Verstappen endured a nightmare qualifying at Interlagos where he was eliminated in Q1, in 16th place.

“It was just bad,” Verstappen lamented as he spoke to Sky F1 after his elimination.

“I mean, I couldn’t push at all. The car was all over the place, sliding around a lot. I had to underdrive it a lot, just to not have a moment.”

It prompted a meeting on Saturday evening amongst Red Bull’s higher-ups, at which time the team decided to make drastic changes to the car, even though it would mean a pit lane start for the reigning World Champion.

Red Bull fitted his RB21 with a brand new power unit and made set-up changes, thus breaking parc ferme conditions.

It was a gamble that paid off as Verstappen put in a drive for the history books as he raced from the pit lane to the podium, taking the chequered flag a mere four-tenths down on second-placed Kimi Antonelli.

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Speaking on Sky Deutschland about Red Bull’s struggles prior to the set-up changes on Sunday, Schumacher revealed Verstappen’s father Jos told him the team is struggling to get the RB21 into the optimal working window.

“They took a wrong turn,” he said, adding that it shows the team – and Verstappen – “does not yet understand the car properly. Hence the fluctuation in the performance of the Red Bull.

“There was more in it, and that has to be said clearly.

“I spoke with Jos, who said that you can’t imagine how difficult it is to get these tyres into their optimal operating window.

“That would explain why Mercedes and sometimes McLaren have problems. Nevertheless, that shouldn’t be the case for a top team that has won so many world championships.”

Red Bull will be hoping Sunday’s changes shed light on what is needed to unlock the car’s potential.

Although team principal Laurent Mekies would not elaborate on what Red Bull had done, he believes the team learned valuable lessons in its pre-race struggles.

“You learn a lot more in the dark moment of the qualifying last night than in any other moment,” he told the media after the grand prix.

“In moments like that where you clearly miss it, we don’t go there by luck or by mistakes. We go there because we feel there is a chance that it’s better, and when it’s obviously not better, it is in this moment that the guys are fantastic, both here, and at the factory in Milton Keynes.

“They are asking the difficult questions. They are questioning what they read. They’re questioning why.

“And that’s the sort of moment that you make steps, perhaps not immediately, but you develop new way of looking. You develop new way of analysing and as a group, you make steps forward.”

But is the World title dream over for Max Verstappen?

Having closed the gap in the Drivers’ championship to 36 points with four grands prix and two sprints, a total of 116 points in play, it looked after Mexico as if Verstappen was in the title race. A long shot, but still a shot.

Alas, one race later, that shot is now more of a miracle as Verstappen trails championship leader Lando Norris by 49 points with a maximum of 83 still up for grabs.

Norris has found a rich vein of form in the last two race weekends, winning in Mexico from pole position, before securing the double – sprint and grand prix – in Brazil. There too he started from pole position.

In contrast, Verstappen wasn’t higher than fifth on the grid in those race weekends, although in both grands prix he did join Norris on the podium in third place. But that’s 10 points lost on each occasion.

Although one can never rule out Verstappen, not until the numbers dictate it, especially after watching his Brazilian Grand Prix performance, time is fast running out for the reigning World Champion in his bid to become only the second F1 driver ever to win five on the trot.

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