Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar were let go at Red Bull after the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix for a series of avoidable problems that prevented them from fully capitalizing on their car’s potential.
Things went badly wrong at the start as Verstappen and Hadjar in particular managed poorly to escape from second and third places on the grid.
Both men were then hampered throughout the race by radio issues which made communication with the pit wall difficult, while Verstappen was annoyed by the choice of a two-stop strategy which left the door open for one-stop Kimi Antonelli to take a dominant victory.
Despite a radio message from team principal Laurent Mekies immediately after the checkered flag admitting that the team had “a few things to sort out”, it was clear that frustration was running high in the cockpit.
In a somber post-race radio message after taking the checkered flag in third, Verstappen said: “Terrible: the pace, the bad tire, shitty pit stop, shitty engine braking. Nothing worked.”
Speaking to Viaplay after the race about whether he agreed with the strategy of going on softs for the second stint when the harder compounds appeared to be in play, Verstappen said: “No, it wasn’t agreed. That’s why I don’t understand. Then everyone would know we’re doing a double stop.”
Later, referring to balance and engine braking problems that were not helped by ongoing radio issues, Verstappen sarcastically told the media: “Maybe we just start communicating in sign language. It’s probably cheaper too.”
“It’s a disaster. It’s really frustrating, to be honest.”
Hadjar was even angrier, as he suggested that Red Bull needed a new clutch design due to repeated weak starts.
“It needs an overhaul because at the moment it is too fragile,” said Hadjar, who ultimately finished sixth. “It doesn’t tolerate temperatures well. It’s a real struggle.”
And then he expressed puzzlement as to why a relatively simple thing like the team radio was such a frustrating problem.
“Right now, it’s the little things we can’t do,” he said. “I have a bad radio, I don’t even know what’s happening. I dropped the clutch, it’s turning into a nightmare.
“We’ve already sorted out these two problems, we could be on the podium. It looks like we can do the hardest things and the stupid things we can’t do.”
Red Bull sticks to what it knew
Mekies was well aware of the problems that turned a potential victory challenge into a frustrating afternoon for his drivers.
Regarding Verstappen’s strategy call, Red Bull said it had to analyze why the degradation during that second stint had been so small, given that the first part of the race against Antonelli seemed to be quite even.
Asked about Verstappen’s complaints, Mekies said: “I’m not sure what he was referring to, because I didn’t hear what he said, but I think one thing that maybe surprised him was the fact that we chose to put him in the second set on softs, (it) certainly wasn’t the base option for us.”
“Unfortunately, as you saw in that second stint, we also had some pretty significant degradation, so that’s probably one of the things we’ll look at together, as to why we deteriorated so much in that second stint.
Mekies felt, however, that whatever strategy was chosen, Antonelli’s pace advantage meant he would have won either way – and Red Bull have traditionally done better with the softer compounds.
“It’s probably fair to say that we normally have a slight advantage over the competition with the softer compounds, and today we struggled to use that advantage,” he said.
“We had some pretty high degradations with Max on the two sets of softer compounds we had, and that certainly didn’t help make the second stop a reality.”
Verstappen certainly thought Red Bull had been drawn to a call based on how his car had performed on softs in recent races.
“At one point it was clear that the people who were using the harder compounds were finding a lot of grip, so I guess we didn’t really react to that either,” he said.
“We’re probably sticking too closely to our beliefs from the last two races, where the softer compounds were the fastest, and clearly here it didn’t work.”
Regarding the radio issue, Mekies said Red Bull did not understand why it had faced this problem for the second race in a row, but said it was now a priority to resolve it.
“If we had understood it, we would have solved it,” he said. “So we don’t really understand why we are affected by these problems.
“Certainly, I have to admit that the competition is doing a better job than us, because we can obviously hear everyone’s radio, and we’ve had more difficulty than we would have liked.”
He added: “It’s making everyone’s life very difficult, so it’s true that it’s something that we would like to resolve quite quickly, because it’s something that should work without using too much of our energy.”
As for the poor starts and Hadjar’s suggestion of the need for a clutch overhaul, Mekies thought it was more of a 2027 project than a short-term one.
Since starts depend on a combination of elements, including the engine, gearbox and clutch, this is not a problem that can be quickly resolved.
So while improvements could continue to be made to minimize the problems, it is unlikely that a larger solution will be found before early next year.
Mekies added: “Even though we have closed the gap on the competition, and you may remember how bad our starts were at the start of the year, we are still not the benchmark.
“The fact that the car has improved a lot in the meantime and is getting closer to the front, makes this deficit even more painful now, because the competition around us is very strong.
“On the one hand, I am convinced that we will continue to reduce the gap with the competition by the end of the year, because with each race we learn, with each race we find small ways to reduce the gap.
“On the other hand, I also know that we will not be the benchmark until the end of the season, that this will require significant changes in design and equipment, and that this is something we will only see next year.
Gn sports
