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.
Four-time world champion Verstappen looked at one stage like 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.
Verstappen felt Red Bull got its strategy wrong in Austin
“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.
“Just probably a bit sticking too much to our belief from the last few races where the softer compounds were the fastest and clearly here that didn't work.
“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 briefly dropped to third at the start
The Dutchman added: “Today we didn't maximise much. The issues of course don't help, but I think also the strategy that we did, with the tyre choices that we made, they were just not good.
“So 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.
“And then like I said before the slow pit stop doesn't help, as well. It's just seconds that you throw away, right? When you're fighting a close battle for second, it hurts your performance.
“Normally we're very good at these things but today we weren’t."
Verstappen initially dropped behind Leclerc with a poor start, before reclaiming the position before the end of the first lap.
On his sluggish getaway, the Red Bull driver said: “My start was normal, just consistent shhh…”
Verstappen arrived in the United States off the back of two dominant victories in Malaysia and Singapore but believes it is clear Red Bull still has improvements to make.
“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 the low-speed,” he explained.
“When you are not none of it, you're just a little bit average, and I think we were just a little bit average also in the race. Of course if we chose different tyres, probably we could have been second, but that's always easy to say afterwards.
“Plus, when you have too many issues with just consistency of your power unit, then that already costs free lap time, so it's normal that you then can't execute everything to the limit, or at least be at your best.
“So there are still a lot of things that we need to look at and, and do better.”
Lewis regularly attends Grands Prix for Crash.net around the world. Often reporting on the action from the ground, Lewis tells the stories of the people who matter in the sport.