According to Red Bull, Verstappen can fight for the podium at Zandvoort

Verstappen got no further than seventh in qualifying and will therefore start his final Dutch GP from the fourth row. Teammate Liam Lawson finished just over a tenth behind the Dutchman and will start from P8. According to Mekies, Red Bull struggled all weekend with single-lap speed, as Verstappen had also indicated earlier.

"As for our overall pace so far, we’ve had difficulty this weekend extracting single-lap speed from the car on this circuit," the Red Bull team boss explains. "In the sprint qualifying we were missing more than half a second and although we found improvement on Saturday, it wasn’t enough to be truly competitive."

Mekies states that Verstappen and Lawson could hardly have extracted more from the RB22. He is especially pleased with Lawson’s performance, after the New Zealander switched to Red Bull for this weekend to stand in for the injured Isack Hadjar.

"Both Max and Liam did everything possible to get the maximum out of the package at their disposal. As always, Max fought until the very last moment and Liam did really, really well," Mekies continues. "It’s very difficult to move from one team to another and then immediately finish just over a tenth behind Max; that’s a fantastic result. It’s a great story for him and for the team."

Saturday morning’s sprint race gives Red Bull more confidence for the Grand Prix. Verstappen started sixth and finished in the same position. Afterward, the Dutchman said he was stuck behind Oscar Piastri and that his tires overheated when he got closer to the McLaren, but he did see his race pace and tire degradation as positives.

Mekies saw the same picture. Although overtaking at Circuit Zandvoort can be an issue, he expects Red Bull to be able to mix it up on Sunday with the drivers starting ahead of Verstappen.

"We saw during the sprint that we’re in a better place in terms of race pace. We were closer to the cars ahead of us, and that means we’re going to throw everything at it to fight with the guys in front," says Mekies. "I think there are seven or eight cars that can fight for the podium. We know it’s hard to overtake here, but we’ll do everything we can to be right in the middle of that fight."