Despite securing a podium finish, Max Verstappen expressed clear dissatisfaction following the United States Grand Prix. In his post-race assessment, the Dutch driver characterized Red Bull’s performance as “just a little average,” citing a combination of incorrect tire strategy, power unit inconsistencies, and communication issues.
Verstappen crossed the line in third place at the Circuit of the Americas, trailing race winner Kimi Antonelli by 17.5 seconds. The result snapped a two-race winning streak that included victories in Malaysia and Singapore.
The reigning champion described the afternoon as “pretty frustrating,” acknowledging the team had relied too heavily on data from previous weekends.
“In hindsight, of course, it’s very easy to say, but for whatever reason, the softer compounds today were not really working that well. So, yeah, then also I think the way that we used our tyres in the order was wrong,” Verstappen explained during the post-race press conference. “Plus, I think at one point it was quite clear that the people on the harder compounds were finding a lot of grip, so I guess we also didn’t really react to that. Just probably sticking too much to our belief from the last two races, where the softer compounds were the fastest, and clearly here that didn’t work.”
Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli converted pole position into victory utilizing a one-stop strategy on the hard compound, while both Red Bull and Ferrari committed to a two-stop approach.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images
Asked to explain the sudden drop in form relative to recent rounds, Verstappen pointed to a fundamental lack of peak performance in any specific cornering regime.
“Because I think we are balanced as a car. We are not the fastest in high speed, we’re not the fastest in low speed, and I think maybe here you either need to be very fast in high speed or you need to be the quickest in low speed. When you’re none of it, you’re just a little bit average, and I think we were just a little bit average in the race.”
Verstappen believed a alternative strategy could have yielded second place, though he noted power unit issues compromised his ability to extract maximum performance.
“Of course, if we chose different tyres, probably we could have maybe been second, but that’s always easy to say afterwards. Plus, when you have too many issues with the consistency of your power unit, then that already costs you free lap time. So it’s normal that you can’t execute everything to the limit or at least be at your best. There are still a lot of things that we need to look at and do better.”
The result leaves Red Bull with significant data to dissect ahead of the next round.
“That’s a few things to analyse: why these tyres didn’t work as we expected, or why the other tyres performed better than expected. So, yeah, something to learn from.”
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