Verstappen continued to rubber stamp his status as the closest contender to the McLaren duo in Saudi Arabia as he attained more valuable points with second place.

The Dutchman had been concerned going into the race in Jeddah that Red Bull’s struggles during the long runs in practice would see him plummet from pole position.

However, Verstappen seemed to have eventual race winner Oscar Piastri covered without the penalty that he landed over an opening corner incident between the duo.

Verstappen expressed that Red Bull’s speed in race trim provided a “positive surprise” as he crossed the line less than three seconds behind Piastri’s leading McLaren.

“I was very positively surprised, to be honest, because on Friday, it was very, very tough,” Verstappen told media including Motorsport Week.

“And it didn’t matter what I was doing in terms of driving, management, the tyres would just fall off.

“The car was a lot nicer. Still limitations, but it was much more promising.

“And actually, at one point when I started to pull away again, I was quite surprised, positively surprised.”

But Verstappen has cautioned that the smoother asphalt present at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit concealed the trouble Red Bull endures on higher degradation tracks.

“We have to stay a little bit calm because this track doesn’t have a lot of deg, and we know that when we go to tracks where there’s higher deg, we just struggle more,” he added.

“We still need to work on that. But the changes that we made already yesterday also worked for today. So I’m very pleased with that.”

Verstappen cautious on McLaren challenge

Verstappen’s return to the podium consolidated his position as third in the championship, leaving him two points down on Lando Norris and another 10 behind Piastri.

But having struggled to sixth in Bahrain on a weekend that exposed Red Bull’s shortcomings, Verstappen has insisted he doesn’t have the tools to sustain a challenge.

“I think we need to find more overall performance, balance especially, and of course consistency,” the reigning F1 champion detailed.

“We are not good at every track. That’s quite clear. Bahrain, we were lacking a lot. Here, for sure, it was a lot better.

“But like I said, it’s also very low deg and then more cars come alive. So we still have work to do, but at least it’s a promising result.

“Overall, it’s been a promising weekend, at the end of the day. We really managed to find a good balance or a decent balance, and that’s, of course, positive for us.”

Verstappen dependent on Red Bull upgrades

Verstappen pinpointed that Red Bull addressing the RB21’s intrinsic weaknesses will be dependent on the developments that are scheduled to be introduced at Imola.

“It’s been a positive weekend for us, honestly,” he reiterated. “Maybe didn’t start off great on Friday, but we tried a lot of things on the car and got it in the window.

“From now on, we need to work more on our weaknesses that we know we have.

“We need to come with upgrades to fix that. Hopefully in the coming races we can see some progression.”