Max Verstappen believes something has "gone wrong" with Red Bull's development that has introduced balance issues to his 2024 Formula 1 car.
Verstappen and Red Bull were the class of the field in the early stages of the season, but a dominant victory by McLaren's Lando Norris in the Dutch Grand Prix further underlined that the Woking squad has since overtaken Red Bull as the quickest team on the grid right now.
Red Bull's campaign first started spluttering in May when it encountered a range of bumpier circuits, with the Monaco Grand Prix a particular pain point.
But rather than a single weakness over bumps and kerbs, Verstappen says subsequent races have gradually exposed further issues to keep the car well balanced, which had been such a strength of the Red Bull in the past. That appears to have hurt the RB20's pace, while also impacting tyre wear.
"It wasn't there in the first few races, but something in the car has made it more difficult to drive," Verstappen said after finishing 22 seconds behind Norris in second for his first-ever home race defeat at Zandvoort.
"It's very hard to pinpoint where that is coming from at the moment. And that is then hurting, of course, our one-lap performance, but also our long-run.
"The whole weekend has been the same limitations. I had pretty much the same balance from FP1 all the way to the race, so it's just very hard to solve at the moment.
"It just seems like we are too slow, but also quite bad on degradation at the moment. That's a bit weird because I think the last few years normally we've been quite good on that.
"So, something has been going wrong lately with the car that we need to understand and we need to quickly try to improve. It's just not a connected balance, front or rear."
Verstappen passed polesitter Norris at the start after a stuttering getaway for the Briton, but on lap 18 Norris breezed past to take a dominant second career win as the Dutchman felt his car was becoming less responsive to his inputs.
"I was just doing my own race, looking after the tyres, I tried to do the best I could," he added. "But at one point, nothing was turning or responding anymore. So then Lando got quite close the first time, like he said, he was close but not close enough.
"And then the next lap, there was nothing that I could do. So once he passed, I just focused on doing my race, tried to bring it to the end in second."
Verstappen heads to this weekend's Italian Grand Prix in Monza with a 70-point lead over Norris in the drivers' championship, with McLaren nearing to within 30 points of Red Bull in the constructors' standings.
