Max Verstappen says he will never be comfortable in this year’s championship battle because of how competitive the season has been so far.

Red Bull started 2024 in excellent form, with Verstappen winning five of the first seven races, and finishing second from pole position in Miami. While there have been two further wins since then, the last four races have yielded just a solitary podium, and Verstappen is wary of the challenges from multiple fronts, even if he is less concerned about the result in Belgium after taking a power unit penalty.

“It’s never comfortable,” Verstappen said. “There’s always things that can go wrong or can happen to you. So every weekend you need to be in top form.

“I think it shifts a little bit. For sure, constantly McLaren has been really quick. Mercedes has been quick, but not everywhere. And from our side, we have a bit of work to do, we know that. We have a few things to analyze as well, what to do with the car for the remainder of the season.

“But on the other hand, of course, having an engine penalty [at Spa-Francorchamps], I think if all of the cars had that, their race would also look very different. So it’s not very fair to fully look at my race coming from P11, because if you just start with them, the race is very different.

“I think there’s things that maybe we can do different, or analyze the things that we’ve brought to the car. And we’ll analyze all of that now over the break.”

Top of the list for analysis from Verstappen’s point of view is the way the RB20 utilizes its tires after having frequently seen McLaren display stronger pace towards the end of stints.

“I think our main concern is the car,” he said. “That’s what we should focus on mainly, because I think if you look at Checo’s weekend [in Belgium], it was very positive, I would say. Of course, in the race, it just shows that we have difficulties with the tires – the tire life – so I think that should be our main priority.”

Mercedes’ run of three wins in four races has seen another threat to Red Bull emerge, but simultaneously prevented Lando Norris from significantly closing the 78-point gap to Verstappen in the drivers’ standings – something the Dutchman is seeing as a positive.

“Fantastic … I mean, I prefer to have it like that than one team suddenly dominating every single race,” he said.