Verstappen: Early on I realized feeling was different from last year's car

After utterly dominating the 2023 F1 season, Red Bull opted for a radical evolution of their car concept for 2024, as they felt that was the best way to keep their advantage over their rivals.

Out of 22 grands prix in 2023, Verstappen won 19, while teammate Sergio Perez won two, leaving one race, the 2023 Singapore Grand Prix, for Ferrari's Carlos Sainz to win.

And while the RB20 showed early signs of a similar dominance in 2024, McLaren made a breakthrough with an upgrade for the Miami Grand Prix, while Red Bull made a mess out of an upgrade for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix and have struggled since then to recover.

Discussing Red Bull's struggles, Verstappen told Motorsport.com: "In the beginning I was surprised as well, but if you look at what our problems were, then I fully understand it.

"At some point, we have gone in the wrong direction. The other teams have either not faced that particular point yet or they developed the car in a slightly different way. That is always difficult to assess," he added.

However, the Dutchman revealed that signs of trouble appeared earlier than the outside F1 world realized and went on: "Early on, I realized that the feeling was very different from last year's car in terms of balance.

"At that time our car was still a lot quicker than the others, or maybe I should say that the others were not so good back then, so at that stage we could still compensate for our difficulties.

"In the races after that, it got worse and worse. At one point our car was just very difficult to drive, and at the same time the others made real progress," Verstappen explained.

On the other hand, blaming Red Bull's decision to go down a different path in their car concept - very different sidepods and cooling layout - was not fair, according to Verstappen, who, like others, was surprised when he saw the early concept of the RB20.

He said: "I don't think you can tell from the outside what went wrong, so that's not the point. What the car looks like on the outside is not the issue."

Like other teams, Red Bull's issue was down to changes in the floor, something Ferrari suffered from in 2024 as their SF-24 stared bouncing after a new floor was brought for the Spanish Grand Prix.

Mercedes as well are yet to understand how to fix their car, while McLaren are taking their time before bringing a new floor, worried it may make their currently dominant MCL38 worse.

To make matters worse for Red Bull, their wind tunnel has become outdated compared to rivals, which makes correlation trickier with the current generation of ground-effect F1 cars.

"It seems trickier than that everyone thinks," Verstappen said of the matter. "At the moment even McLaren is holding back a new floor, which they are not fully sure about. It's a lot more sensitive with upgrades than under previous regulations."

"That is a very difficult topic to talk about, but it is more complicated to get that right than with the old cars," he added when asked about the potentially detrimental effect of his team's wind tunnel.

"It's true that we have a fairly old wind tunnel, but until this year it did everything right. Some things are just hard to understand. You see that with all the other teams as well, except McLaren.

"All teams have had their own problems, including teams with modern wind tunnels. I think it is just extremely difficult to fine-tune things perfectly or to get exactly the right data out of it. That can be down to a lot of things in the wind tunnel itself or how it correlates with the track," the triple F1 champion reckoned.

After the Italian Grand Prix, which Christian Horner highlighted as the low point of his team's season, Red Bull have made slight improvements in Baku and Singapore.

"Yes, it felt better," Verstappen commented on his RB20 in Singapore. "That was already a good step for us. I do think we are moving in the right direction now; it will take some time. You can't turn something like this around in one or two weeks. But I do think the team was happy with what they saw in Baku as well.

"Yes, I do think so, to be honest. Hopefully we can continue to make good steps from here," he concluded when asked if he thought the worst was behind him.

Verstappen still leads the 2024 F1 drivers' championship, 52 points ahead of McLaren's Lando Norris, who has been steadily closing the gap to the defending F1 champion.