Verstappen confirms gap to Ferrari: 'Must close that gap now'

Verstappen wins

After the Australian Grand Prix, all seemed lost for Red Bull Racing and Verstappen. The Dutchman had crashed out for the second time in three races and the gap to Charles Leclerc was growing rapidly. Since then, however, Verstappen has won three races, and after a Ferrari driver's retirement, Max is suddenly in the lead.

Yet Verstappen is also apprehensive about the developments in the competition. Of course Leclerc dropped out now with engine problems, but before that the Monegasque had slowly crept away from Verstappen. ''It's a bit too early to say about the full race. He did pull away from me a little bit at the time, but there were races also before where this has happened a bit.'' Verstappen said at the press conference about the early stages of the Spanish GP.

Updates from Ferrari

''They had a really strong weekend and we definitely need to improve. We need to be better over one-lap performance, especially. It was a bit difficult to tell how big the margin was exactly, because I don't even know what lap I went off but it was very early on and then we never really had a reference anymore.''

The fact that Ferrari seemed to have the tyre wear problems under control does mean, according to Verstappen, that there is work to be done. ''With all the upgrades they brought I think they definitely took a step forward. So now it's up to us, of course to try and close that gap down again", concludes the reigning world champion.