Max Verstappen couldn’t hide his frustrations as he criticised Red Bull following a troubled United States Grand Prix, despite finishing on the Formula 1 podium. The four-time world champion looked at one stage that he might be able to challenge for victory but ultimately had to settle with third place after a race-long squabble with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc for second.
Red Bull rolled the dice by stopping Verstappen early as part of an aggressive two-stop strategy, but he ultimately did not have the pace to catch the dominant Andrea Kimi Antonelli and was passed by Leclerc in the closing stages of Sunday’s race in Austin.
Afterwards, Verstappen rued Red Bull’s strategy for getting its tyre order wrong as he detailed a long list of issues that left him frustrated throughout the grand prix.
"Pretty frustrating, to be honest. Just not a really good race for us. In hindsight, of course, very easy to say, but for whatever reason the softer compounds today were not really working that well," Verstappen said.
"I think also the way that we use our tyres, in the order was wrong, plus, I think it was at one point 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."
The Dutchman also highlighted severe power unit inconsistencies that destroyed his rhythm around the Austin circuit.
"Besides that, too many issues with the power unit where it was just very inconsistent behaviour around the corners. Every lap, every corner, different behaviour. So you can't build up a rhythm, you can't build any kind of consistency in the car. I had a slow pit stop. So yeah, too many things today that just didn't go well."
Verstappen concluded that the team missed multiple opportunities to maximise their result and must learn quickly from these strategic and technical setbacks.
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