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Laurence Edmondson, F1 Editor
Max Verstappen has urged Red Bull to continue to up its game to aid his title defence this year, but said main rival Lando Norris still needs a “perfect” final seven races to beat him.
Norris chipped three points out of Verstappen’s championship lead at Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix despite starting from 15th on the grid.
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The McLaren driver carved through the field and passed Verstappen on track for sixth place before both benefitted from a collision between Sergio Pérez and Carlos Sainz to finish fourth and fifth. Norris also secured a point for the fastest lap.
Norris has outscored Verstappen by 19 points at the last three races, but still needs to close a gap of 59 points at the remaining seven in order to be crowned champion in Abu Dhabi.
Asked if he felt he could defend his lead in the standings, Verstappen said: “I think if we do a better job ourselves. They need to have a perfect end to the year.”
The battle between the two drivers is complicated by the competitiveness of Ferrari, Mercedes and Norris’ teammate Oscar Piastri, who won in Baku.
Verstappen said having other drivers in the mix is positive to limit the damage to his lead, but stressed that he still needs to improve on his performance in Azerbaijan after spending most of the weekend second best to teammate Sergio Perez.
“I don’t like to always be P6 [where Verstappen qualified] myself,” he said. “We need to do a bit better.
“But today already showed with Checo [Perez], when he was a bit happier and the car was performing a bit better, we are in that fight.
“OK we didn’t win but we were in that fight with Checo. So I think from now on we can be in that fight if we keep improving the car step-by-step.”
Red Bull has fallen 20 points behind McLaren in the constructors’ championship after Perez’s last lap collision with Sainz meant he failed to score, while McLaren secured the win and fourth place.
The trend of the last few races has seen McLaren reel in Red Bull and pass the reigning champions, but Verstappen thinks his team’s chances are still alive.
“Of course it’s never nice to see that [Red Bull lose the lead in the standings]. It didn’t help what happened with Checo and Carlos.
“I’m sure that we can do better. The fight is not over yet. We’ll try to get that back.”