Verstappen urges Red Bull ‘hunger and desire’ response

Max Verstappen has called on Red Bull to respond to the "hunger" and "desire" of rival F1 teams. The 26-year-old feels the Milton Keynes-based squad must push harder than the chasing pack to retain its titles, insisting it "should be the mentality" as it fights to defend its crowns. Red Bull started 2024 in imperious form, sweeping away all that lay before it en route to three one-two finishes in the opening four rounds. However, the team has been unable to sustain the levels of performance that saw it triumph in 21 of 22 grands prix last season. McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari have all closed the once-formidable performance gap to Red Bull, and Verstappen is in the midst of his longest winless run since 2020 after failing to take the chequered flag in any of the past four rounds. It is often contended that as regulatory eras in F1 progress, the performance of teams converge, something Verstappen's team principal Christian Horner has cited on numerous occasions to justify Red Bull's diminishing pace advantage. However, the Dutchman does not quite see it that way. "You can always say so, but I never like to think like that, because when you are the winning team, you have to push maybe even harder," he told Formula.hu when asked if it is natural that the opposition has caught up. "That should be the mentality. But that's how it goes. People who are chasing you, they have this hunger, this desire of trying to beat you, and they've done a good job, and now it's up to us to respond." Red Bull 'not the quickest anymore' Each of the aforementioned three trailing teams has won at least two grand prix in the opening 14 rounds of the season, with Verstappen accounting for seven victories himself. However, since McLaren brought substantial upgrades to the Miami Grand Prix in May, he has won just three of the last nine. As Ferrari and then Mercedes have also introduced development packages, Red Bull has struggled to respond with updates of its own. Any upgrades it has delivered have so far failed to re-establish its lead on track. Initially, it appeared the performance gains of the chasing pack had resulted in a circuit-by-circuit fight for supremacy, but Verstappen now feels Red Bull has slipped behind some of its rivals. "In the beginning, maybe you could say some bits were track specific, but I think now, lately, you can clearly see it doesn't matter what kind of track we go to, it's tough for us," the three-time drivers' champion explained. "I would say the last few races, we were not the quickest anymore. So, it's been a bit harder. "Other people have done a very good job, as well, in terms of performance with the car, but, at the same time, we [Red Bull] still extended our lead in the drivers' and [we are] still leading the constructors', so it's not all bad.  "But we need to try and find more performance now with the car to bounce back a little bit, to try to be ahead of the competition again."