Former F1 driver Karun Chandhok has stated Red Bull can take encouragement from its form at a \u201cnormal circuit\u201d in the USA last weekend and apply the confidence to the coming rounds.<\/p>\n
Verstappen cruised to his third victory in four races at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA), bringing himself to within 40 points of championship leader Oscar Piastri.<\/p>\n
The Dutchman’s strong stint after the summer break started with wins in Italy and Azerbaijan – tracks that suited Red Bull’s low downforce package.<\/p>\n
However, COTA presented a new challenge for the car’s abilities. Nevertheless, Verstappen dominated the weekend, taking pole position for the sprint race and the grand prix, and triumphing at the end of both races.<\/p>\n
Chandhok highlighted Red Bull can be confident in its form until the end of the season after fielding a competitive car last weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, this was the most important one, though, of the last four weekends,\u201d Chandhok told Sky F1.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was the first normal track. At Monza it was \u2019Oh, they’re good on a low downforce track\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cSame for Baku. In Singapore, Mercedes suddenly came out and was quickest.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut this was the first normal track we’ve been to since Zandvoort. In Zandvoort, the McLaren was clearly ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was not the case here. And I think the fact that Red Bull were quickest on the Friday sprint qualifying, and we thought, \u2018oh, people haven’t dialled their car in, blah, blah, blah\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut then the gap got even bigger in the main qualifying. So they’re back.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are absolutely back. That bodes well for them for the next five weekends.\u201d<\/p>\n
Verstappen has dramatically closed the championship deficit, with the margin sitting at 104 points just four rounds ago.<\/p>\n
Chandhok theorised that the four-time champion has been able to unlock more pace from himself as a response to Red Bull’s recent step forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe can sniff the results,\u201d Chandhok added. \u201cMcLaren used to say that with [Ayrton] Senna in the years where the car wasn’t quite there.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn a weekend where they didn’t have a chance, he just wasn’t there. Where is his motivation to finish third or fourth?<\/p>\n
\u201cSuddenly, on a weekend where there was a sniff of a victory, he’d unlock two or three-tenths.<\/p>\n
\u201cMax has raised his game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former F1 driver Karun Chandhok has stated Red Bull can take encouragement from its form at a \u201cnormal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-235718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}