Max Verstappen wants his Red Bull team to dominate the French Grand Prix as he looks nervously over his shoulder at title rival Charles Leclerc.
The Monegasque won two of the first three races this year as Verstappen suffered some reliability gremlins. But then Red Bull went on a six-race winning streak while it was the turn of Ferrari to go through their own engine woes.
The Italians are making a bit of a comeback though, having won the last two races. Carlos Sainz earned his maiden win at Silverstone before Leclerc upstaged Red Bull in Austria. And their cars looked to be much faster on the day, a worrying sign for Verstappen and his team.
Leclerc has cut his deficit to the Dutchman to 38 points, and that seems to have made the defending champion nervous. In response, Verstappen has called on his team to dominate a racing weekend as he is fed up of not being the fastest on track.
"So far there has never been a dominant weekend for us because, in general at the start of the year, we were the ones chasing and trying to beat Ferrari," he told reporters. "Then, of course, they had a few retirements and we took advantage of that, or through strategy calls.
"Overall, from my feeling, it is still a bit of chasing and with the weight of the car, we are still overweight which is costing us lap time as well. So we still need to bring updates to the car and they need to work all the time, which is no guarantee.
"When people say 'Red Bull has been really good in the past at bringing upgrades and developments', we have to show it again because every year, if you start thinking like that, normally you will fall behind because you think you are that good. We always have to show that we are good at it and that is what we are trying to do."
Ferrari went fastest in practice on Friday, giving the impression they may be fastest again this weekend. But then Verstappen turned up the heat in the final practice session on Saturday and went much quicker than either of the two Scuderia racers.
Still, though, Leclerc was the one to snatch pole in qualifying after help from Sainz who gave him a tow along the long straights. Verstappen was unable to keep up as a result, but will start just behind with Sergio Perez there to help him to reel in the Ferrari.
