the reality is, max doesn't have the experience to fight for championship and is bound to make some mistakes under pressure. lewis is battle hardened, while he may have lost some edge in qualifying as he doesn't produce those lightning laps anymore. he is simply a shark in races and barely let's his prey go. the red bull seems to be standing still whereas mercedes has caught them and now moving forward. unless red bull does an out of the world job on upgrades and max minimizes those small mistakes, it's difficult to beat lewis and mercedes.
with redbull struggling for power and the way alpha tauri is falling behind, honda's initial impressions of being the best pu on the grid is also falling flat. this is turning out to be a 2018 all over again. ferrari started well and then mercedes took over.