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Max Verstappen is wary of Ferrari's pace advantage and expects the Prancing Horse to be quick at the upcoming 2022 F1 Hungarian GP.
Ferrari has been rapid in 2022, but reliability and driver errors, along with the team's own strategic blunders, have let the Scuderia down on multiple occasions this season. Max Verstappen has capitalized on this thrice so far and built an almost unassailable lead at the top of the World Drivers' Championship standings.
However, the reigning world champion is not taking the rest of the season for granted. When asked if he felt comfortable with his 63-point lead after winning the 2022 F1 French GP, the Dutchman said:
“It’s a great lead, but a lot of things can happen. I just want to stay focused. We need a lot more good results. We still need more one-lap pace, and I think the next race is going to be a bit more of a struggle for us, where I think Ferrari is going to be really, really quick. But we’ll see. Again, it’s all about scoring points every single race, even when it’s not your day.’’
Ferrari has had more dominant weekends than Red Bull in 2022, according to Max Verstappen
Max Verstappen feels that Red Bull is still chasing Ferrari when it comes to performance in 2022 despite leading the standings for both world titles.
Ferrari's aggressive approach to developing its 2022 F1 Power Unit has been a boon and a curse for the Scuderia. While no one has been able to quite match the pace of the team's package, Ferrari has been plagued by major reliability issues in the 11 rounds of racing this year.
While speaking to the media ahead of the 2022 F1 French GP, Verstappen admitted that Red Bull is still trailing the Scuderia with regard to its pace advantage. The 24-year-old said:
“In general, I felt like at the beginning of the year we were the ones like chasing and trying to beat Ferrari. Then they had a few retirements and we of course took advantage of that, or through strategy calls. So I think overall, we, from my feeling, [are] still [doing] a bit of chasing. Of course it depends a bit on the tracks, but overall, I feel they had more dominant weekends than we [did].”
Verstappen went on to add:
“After Melbourne, I thought if there is a possibility, we might be able to fight towards the end of the season back for a potential chance. And then I mean it really quickly turned around. But that also shows that it can go the other way very quickly, so we just always have to be on it. We cannot make mistakes.”
Max Verstappen is hoping that the Austrian team can introduce upgrades of its own to what is already one of the most aerodynamically efficient cars on the grid in 2022.
However, Red Bull will also need to keep an eye on the looming technical directives proposed by the FIA to combat porpoising, which could prove to be a spanner in the works for them.
