Max Verstappen won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Photo: Racepictures.

'Sovereign' Verstappen sparks up F1 title fight talks at Red Bull

16:45, 21 Sep

Updated: 17:23, 21 Sep

byNorberto Mujica

Max Verstappen achieved a sixth career Grand Schelem in Baku in what was his second consecutive win, and this success seems to have ignited Drivers' title talks at Red Bull Racing.

Red Bull celebrates Baku win. Photo: RacePictures.

If it works, it will be good against McLaren, it will be good against Mercedes and McLaren.

- Laurent Mekies

After the race Mekies was questioned regarding the morale boost this latest win supposes for Red Bull Racing.

"You're right in saying that the confidence goes up," Mekies said. "So, also you can take a bit more risk every race and experiment a bit more and unlock more lap time.

"Whether that has an effect on what McLaren does, honestly I don't know. Probably none of our business.

"But we concentrate on ourselves. That's what we want to see. We want to see the car making progress in some areas.

"And if it works, it will be good against McLaren, it will be good against Mercedes and McLaren.

Is Verstappen's title charge on?

For the first time this season, Verstappen and Red Bull have managed to string along two on the trot successes, and off the back of Max Verstappen's lights-to-flag win at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, coupled with Oscar Piastri's first lap crash and Lando Norris' P7 finish, Verstappen has taken a 35 points chunk off the Australian driver's lead. Does Red Bull look at Verstappen as being back in the championship fray?

"I tell you how we look at it. We really take it race by race, so we don't look at the championship positions. We don't even look at it from a constructor perspective.

"Yes, it's nice to look at the battle for second place on the constructors, but we take it step by step in terms of understanding of the car, in terms of unlocking lap time of the car.

"We got some good answer in Monza, of course. We got some good answer today. We are equally conscious that there are two very, very specific tracks," Mekies concluded.

Now the field will travel to Singapore where the 18th round of the championship will be contested in a fortnight. There Verstappen will have yet another chance to reaffirm their recently found upward performance trend, on an entirely different layout.