Max Verstappen is not taking the 2022 world championship for granted, insisting he still feels as though he is "chasing" Ferrari's Charles Leclerc.
In reality, the reigning world champion is 38 points clear of Leclerc, but many in the paddock believe it is Ferrari with the outright fastest car.
"It feels like we're still chasing," Red Bull's Verstappen told Algemeen Dagblad.
In Austria two weeks ago, for instance, Leclerc comfortably won.
When asked what the problem was, Verstappen answered: "Not the tyres, not even the setup.
"The whole package was just not quite right," the Dutchman said at Paul Ricard.
"I'm not going to go into detail about what was wrong, but it didn't help that it was a sprint weekend. Then you gradually find out that it doesn't work and then your time is limited to do something about it."
However, he insists he has had a similar feeling all the way through the first part of the season so far.
"I don't think we've had one very dominant weekend yet," said the 24-year-old.
"At the start we were chasing, trying to beat Ferrari. After that they had some failures, we took advantage of that, or we won strategically," Verstappen added.
"In general, I think Ferrari has been more dominant than us and we are still chasing. The car is also still too heavy, which costs us time.
"So we have to keep working, keep bringing updates that have an effect. We have no guarantees."
