'A disaster': Verstappen slams Red Bull's radio and tyre choices after Austin
Third place, but no reason to smile: Max Verstappen again complained about radio dropouts after the United States Grand Prix and criticised his team's tyre strategy. Isack Hadjar was unhappy too.
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Max Verstappen has openly criticised his Red Bull team after the United States Grand Prix. The Dutchman finished third in Austin but, according to the official result, was 17.485 seconds behind winner Kimi Antonelli. As at the Singapore race two weeks earlier, he struggled to communicate with his race engineer, Sky Sports reported – including when he tried to report problems with engine braking. "It's a disaster. Yeah, it's a disaster. It's really frustrating, to be honest," Verstappen said, adding: "Maybe we should just start communicating in sign language. It's probably cheaper as well."
He was also unhappy with the strategy. According to Crash.net, Red Bull pitted him early for an aggressive two-stop race, but the softer compounds "were not really working that well", and he said the order in which the tyres were used was wrong. On pace he added: "We are not the fastest in high-speed, we're not the fastest in low-speed." A slow pit stop cost him further time in his fight with Charles Leclerc for second place.
Team-mate Isack Hadjar, who finished sixth, also reported poor radio coverage and said he left the pits with the wrong engine map. He said he lost around a second per lap on the hard tyre and that the clutch needs a redesign. In the championship Verstappen is fourth on 236 points, just six behind second-placed George Russell. The next race is in Mexico City on Sunday.