McLaren has been warned that a resurgent Max Verstappen will make the F1 title run “interesting.”<\/p>\n
Verstappen’s back-to-back wins in Italy and Azerbaijan have cut Oscar Piastri’s points lead from 104 to 69, following a third and a DNF, respectively, for the championship leader, with Verstappen 44 points behind Lando Norris, currently in second.<\/p>\n
Red Bull delivered a floor upgrade to the Monza race, which appears to have transformed the tricky RB21, although a true test of its title credentials awaits in Singapore, a race Verstappen has never won, and is high downforce.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both the Monza and Baku wins have come in low downforce configuration, but three-time F1 race winner and former Renault and Ferrari driver Giancarlo Fisichella believes the Dutchman will make the remaining seven rounds “interesting.”<\/p>\n
“Considering the last couple of races, Verstappen was dominating in racing and qualifying sessions,” Fisichella told aceodds.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“No-one expected that big of a jump from Red Bull, and [Yuki] Tsunoda scored a good result as well.<\/p>\n
“Red Bull is going the right way, and has found a good package in terms of car balance and setup, which is very fixed for Max’s driving style. It will be an interesting end to the season.”<\/p>\n
Fisichella also touched on the number of F1 rookies on the grid, and picked out countryman Kimi Antonelli and Brazil’s Gabriel Bortoleto for particular praise.<\/p>\n
“At the start of the season, Antonelli was doing well, then he had a few problems, but in the last race he did very well,” Fisichella added of the Mercedes driver.<\/p>\n
“I am Italian and I root for Antonelli. Antonelli is a good guy, and he\u2019s quick. He\u2019s just 18. He\u2019s got all the skills to be a world champion.<\/p>\n
“Bortoleto really impressed me in F2 and F3, I was a little surprised to see him struggle at the beginning of the season.<\/p>\n
“But now, after a few races, he’s quicker than Nico Hulkenberg. He’s one of my favourite drivers on the grid.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren has been warned that a resurgent Max Verstappen will make the F1 title run “interesting.” Verstappen’s back-to-back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[3007,1687,3010,3008,3011,3009,831,372,6537,832,3006,3005,3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-164375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","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","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}