Trailing the McLaren team-mates in the standings, Le Mans winner Nick Catsburg has told Max Verstappen that he needs to team up with Jos to “stoke” tension at McLaren.

After the celebrations at Suzuka when he held off Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to win his first Grand Prix of the season, Verstappen had a wretched weekend in Bahrain.

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Lacking the pace to challenge the McLaren team-mates, his efforts were undone by brake issues in qualifying and pit stop woes in the Grand Prix.

Taking the chequered flag in sixth place, Verstappen now trails both McLaren drivers in the standings with Norris leading by three points ahead of his Australian team-mate. Verstappen is eight points off the pace.

But with early indications in F1 2025 that both McLaren team-mates will fight for the World title, Verstappen has been told to play mind games and stoke tensions at McLaren.

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“Max has to stoke between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri,” 2023 Le Mans GTE winner Catsburg told Ziggo Sport. “I think Jos is also an influencer these days. He was also busy on X.

“Maybe they should put pressure on those two together.

“As a racing driver, you have to be mean.”

Last week, in the wake of the Japanese Grand Prix, Jos Verstappen created headlines when he reposted a video of Norris’ mini DRS with his rear wing appearing to open as he fended off Piastri on the straights.

Norris wasn’t enamoured by the comments about his MCL39’s rear wing, saying: “I think the people who just look at these videos are a bit clueless.

“How do they know it’s the rear wing that’s flexing? They don’t, it could be the whole car so people can just come up with what they want but really they have absolutely no idea.”

He also wasn’t impressed with Verstappen’s claims that he’d be out of sight if he was the one driving the 2025 McLaren F1 car.

“I don’t mind, he can say what he wants,” said the McLaren driver. “I don’t care, honestly. Everyone can say what they want and believe what they want.

“I would love, he can come and test our car any day that he wants, and I’ll be excited to see the disappointment on his face after he gets out.”

Going on to have a tough time in Bahrain compared to Piastri where he was four tenths down on his team-mate in qualifying and finished the race 16s behind him, Catsburg believes the Verstappens are already upsetting the Briton.

“I do think Max is the last one to do that. You can see that Lando reacts to it and is more sensitive to it, so let Max continue like this, and so does his father,” he said.

But at the end of the day, the team that fared badly in Bahrain was Red Bull.

“Yes, it’s a really terrible circuit in terms of grip level,” said the Dutch race driver. “As soon as you leave the pit lane, your tyres don’t work anymore. It’s the opposite of Japan.

“So you can see very well here which cars are good with tyre wear, and I am mainly referring to McLaren. Because of that tyre wear, the differences here are much bigger than at Suzuka.”

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