Tough At The Top
It is hard to become the best in the world, but they say it is even harder to remain number one and why dominance never lasts.
Red Bull are under severe pressure from McLaren to hold onto the constructors title this season a title they have comprehensively won 3 seasons in a row. The lead is now down to just 30 points and realistically next weekend McLaren
could be in the lead.
Today Lando Norris was a full 23 seconds clear of Verstappen's Red Bull and now there is a significant difference in car performance. What has become quite clear Red Bull are in trouble and now having lost Adrian Newey back in March they have no answers. Adrian Newey was the brains behind the car performance and once again highlights it is the car and not necessarily the driver that makes the big difference.
Newey has been reportedly offered an $100 million contract over 3 years which is looking rathe cheap now. If you consider every championship point is worth $1 Million then since his departure Red Bull have been losing points compared to what they once were doing he is worth every single cent. At the time he was on a $10 million per year contract which is worth the equivalent of 10 Championship points. Newey could fix Red Bull's current woes with his eyes closed as he built this car and knows every single nut and bolt.
Being out in front means you are the target for every other team and you are basically their benchmark. We have seen in the past that teams do dominate and at some point other teams will catch them up and surpass them. Mercedes had a dominant 8 years winning the constructors title consecutively. Red Bull have been leading the constructors title since March 2020 and it looks like their time out in front will end either this weekend coming or at the following race.
The problem Red Bull have is they have only one car scoring a decent amount of points each week with McLaren having two cars fighting for the podium. Perez the number 2 driver at Red Bull is the weak link and is trailing Verstappen by a huge 156 points and why they should have swapped him out with a ore competitive driver. I think Red Bull know the Constructors title is all but lost and now Verstappen is under pressure for the Drivers Title.
Verstappen last won a race at the Spanish Grand prix which was 5 races ago and have not looked like the same team ever since. McLaren introduced some upgrades to the Miami Grand Prix which Norris won and has slowly transformed the team into the team we see today.
Over the course of 1 season teams will bring in various upgrades which increases the car performance and these are normally judged in tenths of seconds gained. Today Verstappen was beaten by a better car by more than 23 seconds over 72 laps which is roughly slightly more 300 ths of a second quicker every lap. There is no catching that time gap this season and why the drivers Championship is definitely up for grabs even with only 9 races remaining.
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Has Red Bull been dominant for a very long time or something? I don't pay much attention to this sport.