Villeneuve: 'Not even feisty' Verstappen has changed
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In a season that once seemed dominated by Max Verstappen, recent races have revealed a different side of the reigning champion—a side that has prompted concern from former F1 driver Jacques Villeneuve.
The Canadian believes "something has changed" for the Red Bull charger, noting a shift in Verstappen's attitude, observing a lack of his usual competitive spark as he struggles to adapt to his underperforming RB20.
Last weekend's Azerbaijan Grand Prix marked another challenging weekend for the Dutch driver, who finished fifth after grappling with an ill-handling car throughout the race.
Verstappen – who claimed his most recent win at last June's Spanish Grand Prix – was fortunate to gain two positions following a late crash involving his teammate Sergio Perez and Ferrari's Carlos Sainz, but the result still cut his championship lead to 59 points versus Lando Norris.
It was the third consecutive race in which his advantage over the McLaren driver, his closest rival, has been whittled down.
"Max for the last few races sounds downbeat," commented Villeneuve, working with Sky F1 last weekend in Baku.
"He's not even feisty in the race and doesn't fight that hard. Even on the radio, we barely hear him. Something has changed.
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"It's as if he knows he hasn't won [for a while], he knows it [the car] is not driving like he wants. Now, his team-mate was a lot quicker than him. That's a very strange situation."
Reflecting on his difficulties last weekend, Verstappen believes that his subdued performance on race day was largely due to setup changes made before qualifying that negatively impacted his car's behavior.
The three-time world champion acknowledged that while the team's intention was to improve the car, the adjustments actually made it worse by compromising the RB20's grip and stability.
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"I think we just paid the price with the changes that we made into qualifying. That just made it really difficult to drive," Verstappen said.
"The car was jumping around a lot, the wheels were coming off the ground in the corners. When you don't have a contact patch with the tarmac, it's very difficult.
"You try to make changes always to make the car better but unfortunately what we did made it worse.
"The overall behaviour is better [with the new floor]. Unfortunately we just made some wrong decisions going into qualifying and we paid the price for it."
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