I’ll be honest and admit that after the first five races, I was concerned we were in for another snoozefest F1 season. Fast forward four months, an eternity in F1 terms, and the question that everyone now asks in the supermarket and at the school gates is ‘have the wheels fallen off the Red Bull wagon?’
At the start of the season Max Verstappen was able to rattle off pole positions with ease, then manage his races to rack up the wins without much stress. The one blip was a non-finish in Melbourne, but he still looked quick enough to be a contender.
But since Miami McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes have all shown better form and Max has been forced to dig deep to produce special laps to stay at the sharp end. Having won five of the first seven GPs, Verstappen has since won just two of the last seven. This trend is perhaps better illustrated by how Sergio Perez’s form has dipped. The Mexican qualified on the front two rows at four of the first six Grands Prix, but in the next seven, until and including Hungary, his average position was 14th! He did a good job in wet qualifying at Spa to end up third, but still over six tenths off his teammate.
