Red Bull sense power shift as McLaren ‘no longer in a dominant position’
Which F1 team has the fastest car heading into the final five races of the year?

Red Bull are adamant McLaren have taken a step back in performance relative to earlier in the season.
Max Verstappen has won three of the last four F1 races to get back into championship contention.
With five races and two sprints to go, Verstappen is just 40 points off Oscar Piastri.
McLaren haven’t won a race since the Dutch Grand Prix in August.
Initially, it was thought that McLaren’s lack of pace was due to track characteristics.
McLaren have typically struggled at low downforce circuits, explaining their lack of pace at Monza and Baku.
However, Lando Norris was the lead McLaren in Singapore, finishing third behind George Russell and Verstappen.
Similarly, at the United States Grand Prix, Norris could only finish second after a race-long scrap with Charles Leclerc.
Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies believes the balance of power has now shifted after McLaren’s early-season dominance.
“I think it’s saying that in terms of relative performance they [McLaren] don’t have the advantage they had in the first part of the season anymore compared to us,” he told reporters in Austin.
“I think we are not in a situation, you know even back in Spa when we won the Sprint we were still a half a second slower than them, every lap, even in Zandvoort after the shutdown, we were still probably half a second slower than them every lap.
No team “in a dominant position”
Mekies expects the recent trend of four teams being in the hunt depending on various factors to continue.

Russell was comfortably the fastest driver in Singapore, winning from pole, while Ferrari were in the mix at COTA, with Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton finishing inside the top four.
“I think that has now gone, and we are in a situation where you go to a race weekend and you have three or four teams that can fight for the win if they extract everything their car can produce on that track,” Mekies added.
“I don’t think anyone is in a dominant position, I think every race, every of the remaining race will be about which one of these four teams is nailing the track layout, the conditions, the temperatures, the tyres and then that guy will win the race.”