{"id":802929,"date":"2026-07-15T06:08:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T06:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/802929\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T06:08:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T06:08:14","slug":"max-verstappen-names-hardest-step-red-bull-face-in-f1-rival-hunt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/802929\/","title":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen names &#8216;hardest step&#8217; Red Bull face in F1 rival hunt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Max Verstappen has named the &#8220;hardest step&#8221; Red Bull faces in trying to latch onto F1 rivals with its RB22 car.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>The Red Bull machine has proven to be at least third-best in 2026, with Mercedes and Ferrari the class leaders, with Red Bull often fighting with McLaren to be third fastest.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>After the British GP, McLaren holds the upper hand in the constructors&#8217; battle on 179 points, with Red Bull 51 points behind on 128, with Verstappen seventh in the drivers&#8217; standings with two podiums from nine races.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>The team was initially battling to reduce the weight in the chassis, with an upgrade in Austria allowing Verstappen to finish in second place, with the four-time champion detailing that the hardest step facing the Milton Keynes squad remains to be taken.\u00a0\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There are, of course, easier steps to make,&#8221; Verstappen explained to media, including RacingNews365, when asked about the ease of bringing upgrades.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When you are far behind, the hardest [step] is always the last one to really fight for the win, so let&#8217;s see how we can do that to be in the fight again.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am not sure, but for sure, the team is always giving it 100% and pushing it flat out to make the car faster, but we also know that other teams are constantly bringing upgrades.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So we just need to always try and find a little bit more to try and close that gap.&#8221;\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen has named the &#8220;hardest step&#8221; Red Bull faces in trying to latch onto F1 rivals with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":802930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,2476,578,2479,2477,2480,2478,930,576,577,932,1885,2475,582,82],"class_list":["post-802929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motorsport","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/802930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}