Max Verstappen has expressed concerns about Red Bull’s race pace and ability to challenge McLaren at the US Grand Prix.
Verstappen took an easy win at the Circuit of the Americas on Saturday.
The Dutchman resisted early pressure from Mercedes’ George Russell and took the lead in the sprint race.
Verstappen’s afternoon got easier after both McLarens suffered DNFs on the opening lap.
Oscar Piastri’s switchback attempt resulted in carnage in the first corner, with both McLarens withdrawing from the race.
That means Verstappen is 55 points behind Piastri with six races (plus two sprints) remaining.
Despite the important win, Verstappen believes Red Bull needs to improve the handling of the RB21 ahead of qualifying.
“It was a good start,” Verstappen told Jenson Button at parc fermé. “Then, of course, the safety car was brought in because of the incident at Turn 1. After the safety car it took me a few laps to get to a decent pace.”
“So we need to find out what was going on there. Still, we won the sprint, which of course is the most important thing.”
“But, of course, already thinking about tomorrow, I think we need to be a little bit better in the race to fight against McLaren, because with McLaren we haven’t seen anything.
“Obviously we have some ideas of what we can do and hopefully we can do a little bit better tomorrow.”
Verstappen set to fight for F1 title
Verstappen refused to be drawn into talk of winning this year’s title.
The four-time world champion is an in-form driver, winning two of the last three races.
A series of upgrades transformed Red Bull and made it a contender on all types of circuits. This coincided with a period when McLaren was struggling with form.
max verstappen
Asked by Sky Sports about the title fight, Verstappen said:
“We won the sprint, but the pace was not what we wanted. We definitely need to be stronger if we want to win tomorrow.
“That’s something to analyze to see if we can find that kind of pace.”