Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies has told Max Verstappen that significant performance improvements, including new parts to improve race starts, will not come until next year. The response follows Verstappen's angry radio outburst and post-race criticism after finishing third at the United States Grand Prix in Austin.
Verstappen held onto his podium spot despite a late charge from Lewis Hamilton, but he was furious with the car's performance and Red Bull's execution. Over the radio, he said: "Terrible. The pace, the wrong tyre, s*** pitstop, s*** engine braking – nothing worked."
He accused Red Bull of putting him on a tyre strategy he did not agree to before the race, described their execution as "a disaster" and complained about ongoing radio problems, joking that it might have been easier to communicate with race engineer Tom Hart "in sign language".
Hadjar also frustrated by poor starts
Verstappen was also unhappy with another poor launch off the line, which affected both cars and saw them lose positions at the start of the race. Like the radio, it has been an ongoing theme of the season and has left team-mate Isack Hadjar particularly frustrated.
Hadjar was so annoyed by the poor start he suffered that Sky Sports had to hold his interview until they could edit out his swearing before it was safe to broadcast. In one of his more family-friendly comments, Hadjar said: "The race starts – I did everything on my side. Clutch overdelivery, completely out of my control again. It's really starting to p*** me off. It's not a nice feeling when you know you're going to drop the clutch and you don't know what you're going to have."
Hadjar added that he felt he could have had "a brilliant race" if not for the poor launch, which dropped him behind both Ferraris that started behind him on the first lap.
No benchmark before end of season
Between the starts and the radio, Red Bull have plenty of work to do away from the track. Mekies offered hope that they might find a way to better communicate with their drivers on track, but warned that significant performance improvements, including new parts to facilitate better launches, will not come until next year.
Mekies said: "We don't fully understand why we are being hit by these issues. 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 have been struggling more than what we would have liked to."
On the starts and Red Bull's other performance deficits, Mekies added: "As much as we have reduced the gap to competition, and you may remember how bad our starts were at the beginning of the year, we are still not the benchmark. The fact that the car in the meantime improved a lot, and is fighting closer to the front, makes that deficit even more painful now, because competition around us is very strong."
Mekies said he is confident the team will continue to reduce the gap to the competition from now to the end of the year, but equally knows they will not be the benchmark before the end of the season, as that will require significant design and hardware changes that will only be seen next year.
