Max damaged his car on debris, says Mekies

After second place in Baku and victories in Malaysia and Singapore, Red Bull arrived in Austin determined to complete a hat-trick of wins. But the team lacked that crucial tenth or two when it mattered, and Max Verstappen lost out not only to Mercedes but also to Ferrari. According to team boss Laurent Mekies, however, we did not see the RB22’s true pace on Sunday.

Red Bull suffered a range of problems during the race. The drivers again made poor starts, the radio played up and the mechanics struggled with the pit stops. But according to Laurent Mekies, those were not the only issues that prevented the car bearing the red bull from showing its full potential on Sunday.

You may recall that early in the race, Max Verstappen reported that something appeared to be stuck underneath his car. It turned out he was right. “Max’s car hit some debris around lap eight and picked up some damage,” Mekies said after the race.

“On top of that, we had a few issues that hurt the balance and, as a result, the pace dropped off, the degradation increased, and Max couldn’t hang on to second place,” the French engineer added.

With Ferrari introducing upgrades and Mercedes improving as it learnt how to get the most out of its new package, it might appear that Red Bull has slipped back a little. But Mekies believes we should not be misled. Although the team was unhappy with Sunday’s race result, the car’s pace was compromised by a number of factors that were not entirely within the drivers’ control.

“It’s fair to say that, despite a 12th podium of the season with Max finishing third, we are leaving Austin not fully satisfied,” Mekies admitted. “We lost a bit of our edge today, and I don’t think we had enough pace to fight with Kimi, who had a very strong race, so well done to him.”

Red Bull’s other driver, Isack Hadjar, was not spared problems either. He again lost ground at the start, had radio issues and was unhappy with his strategy, although it was similar to Kimi Antonelli’s. “It was a similar story for Isack,” Mekies continued.

“His race was compromised by the start and then by a couple of problems during the race. Once again, the starts weren’t perfect, but the team is working to make sure we have the tools to fix that in the future,” the Red Bull boss said.

“A challenging Sunday, but we’ll take the podium knowing that we didn’t fully realise the potential of the car today, and we’ll take learnings from this weekend to come back stronger next week in Mexico. Despite all that, we have now moved up to third in the constructors’ championship, and Max is now only six points behind second place in the drivers’ championship,” Mekies concluded on a positive note.