‘Something has changed’ with Max Verstappen after ‘not feisty’ performance in Baku claim

Jacques Villeneuve believes something has changed with Max Verstappen after a lacklustre Azerbaijan Grand Prix ended with a P5 finish, and not a radio rant to be heard.

It was in sharp contrast to his last fifth-placed finish at the Hungarian Grand Prix when his expletive-laden messages led to F1 reminding the teams to keep their drivers in check.

Jacques Villeneuve thinks ‘something has changed’ with Max Verstappen

Verstappen was criticised by pundits after a sweary Hungarian Grand Prix in which he raged at his Red Bull pit wall over his strategy and later refused to apologise for his language, saying if F1 doesn’t want people to hear it, they shouldn’t broadcast his radio message.

That race marked round two of what is now a seven-race winless streak and yet his latest P5 finish didn’t inspire the same anger and frustration. And it could’ve been worse, it could’ve been a P7.

Despite bolting a new floor onto the RB20 in Baku, Verstappen struggled with bouncing in qualifying before a lack of grip – “zero bite” – hindered him in the Grand Prix.

Running in sixth place with three laps to go, Verstappen lost a position to his title rival Lando Norris as the McLaren driver, on fresher tyres and with DRS, powered past into Turn 1 without even a hint of a fightback from Verstappen.

Villeneuve was surprised by the Dutchman’s lack of fight.

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“Max for the last few races sounds downbeat. He’s not even feisty in the race and doesn’t fight that hard,” the 1997 World Champion told Sky F1 . “Even on the radio, we barely hear him. Something has changed.

“He knows the car isn’t driving as he wants and his team-mate was a lot quicker than him.”

The Grand Prix ended under Virtual Safety Car conditions due to Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz’s late-race crash on the run down to Turn 3 on the penultimate lap.

That elevated Norris to fourth with Verstappen scoring 10 points in fifth place. But with McLaren outscoring Red Bull by 38 points to 10, it’s the Woking team who now lead the Constructors’ Championship.

Verstappen’s lead in the Drivers’ is down to 59 points with 212 points in play.

Verstappen, despite declaring after Monza that holding onto both titles was “not realistic”, was slightly more optimistic after Baku.

“I’m sure that we can do better,” said Verstappen. “The fight is not over yet. We’ll try to get that back.”

As for the Drivers’ , he added: “I think if we do a better job ourselves, they need to have a perfect end to the year.

“The gap is still decent, I would say.”

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