Martin Brundle has raised questions over the true extent of Max Verstappen’s supposed 23-second slower finish compared to Lando Norris at the Dutch Grand Prix. Brundle suspects that Verstappen might have deliberately slowed down to send a signal to the Red Bull team.
Lando Norris delivered an exceptional performance to claim pole position at Zandvoort, outpacing Verstappen by over three-tenths of a second. However, during the race, Verstappen initially regained the lead from Norris at the start but was later overtaken by the McLaren driver on Lap 18. Norris maintained his lead, ultimately winning by nearly 23 seconds—the largest victory margin in the 2024 F1 season so far.
Christian Horner, Red Bull’s team principal, acknowledged the need for the team to understand and address the performance gap. “We need to understand where the deficit is,” Horner told Sky F1. “We’ve learned quite a lot this weekend, but you can see the pace that they [McLaren] had at this track was outstanding. So, we need to obviously understand how we can improve performance.”
Despite this, Brundle remains skeptical that Verstappen was genuinely 23 seconds slower than Norris. He speculates that Verstappen may have eased off to send a “hurry up” message to the Red Bull factory, urging them to step up their development efforts.
Brundle remarked, “I’m going to guess it’s about car setup and strategies— the usual things about racing. But I’d hazard a guess that that was not as fast as Max could go. He knew he couldn’t beat Lando, and by dropping back a bit, it’s going to give the factory a hurry up, isn’t it? I’d be pretty sure of that.”
Naomi Schiff, another Sky F1 pundit, echoed Brundle’s sentiments, urging Red Bull to address the RB20’s issues. Schiff pointed out that disruptions like those at Zandvoort, including rain-impacted practice sessions and the fiery crash of Logan Sargeant in FP3, can make it challenging for Red Bull to find the optimal setup.
“They have a car at the moment that isn’t just smooth sailing, as it has been in the past,” Schiff said. “And they have to get on top of that because when a weekend like this comes along with curtailed sessions or rainy sessions, it’s tougher for them to get the setup in the sweet spot, and then they lose out, and they lost out quite a lot when it comes to pace.”
Norris’ victory at the Dutch Grand Prix marks the first time Verstappen has failed to win at his home race since its return to the F1 calendar in 2021.
