Coulthard: 'Verstappen can afford a bad run of reliability'

Max Verstappen was the dominant force at Spa-Francorchamps, but the race weekend at Zandvoort has started less strongly for the championship leader. A gearbox problem caused Verstappen to miss most of FP1, before Red Bull Racing failed to get the balance right in FP2. The team therefore has a long night ahead of them, but David Coulthard stressef that Verstappen can also afford a weaker weekend.

After an extremely strong weekend in Belgium, expectations for the Dutch Grand Prix were high. Verstappen outperformed the rest of the field in a car that also outperformed the competition in the first race after the summer break, but after Friday in Zandvoort Red Bull is still searching. The technical problems Verstappen encountered in FP1 did not help.

As the reigning World Champion pointed out, Red Bull will need to find something in the night from Friday to Saturday, otherwise the weekend looks set to fall to Ferrari and Mercedes. However, even if that is the case it would not be a disaster for Verstappen, according to Coulthard.

"I think that with the points advantage he has, even if he has a bad run of, let's say, reliability, he's still going to get enough points to win this world title," Coulthard told GPblog.com. With a 93-point lead over team-mate Sergio Perez and a 98-point gap to Charles Leclerc, Verstappen has a considerable margin that will be difficult for the competition to bridge in the final eight races.