Red Bull Racing
Max Verstappen earned a podium place at the 2024 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix around the Circuit of The Americas in Austin to extend his 2024 FIA Formula One World Championship lead from McLaren’s Lando Norris.
The Oracle Red Bull Racing driver drove superbly to get everything out of his car, and he now leads Norris by 57 points, with five races left, and teammate Sergio Pérez finished seventh place.
Max Verstappen, Driver, Red Bull Racing
Today wasn’t the best for us, but the most important thing is that we gained a lead in the championship, which means a lot for the team. I tried everything I could, but we didn’t have the pace we had had over the last few days and, unfortunately, couldn’t fight the Ferraris on track. We had some balance issues; it was difficult to turn and break, and I couldn’t attack the corners because of the tyres. The battle with Lando at the end was fantastic as we were racing hard, but it was a lot of fun. You cannot overtake outside the white line, and I have lost a podium here before overtaking outside the track, so that is unfortunate, but it is the rules. We need to analyse a bit more why we didn’t have the same pace as yesterday, as we expected to be more competitive, which is a shame. However, this weekend, we have made some positive steps and have had flashes where it looked like we were returning to the front, so we are going in the right direction. It is still insufficient, but we will keep improving the car where we can. As we said, ultimately, the fact that we have extended the gap is the biggest thing for us.
Sergio Pérez, Driver, Red Bull Racing:
I lost quite a bit of time getting stuck behind the midfield pack at the beginning and the people who were on the hard seemed to have the best strategy, therefore I lost position to George in the end. It was pretty strange towards the end of the first stint. My pace was better, but I suffered severely from front pitching, and the ride was quite bad. Generally, it then got a bit worse, and I thought it was maybe that tyre, but then I fitted the hard, and it was the same issue and pace. I was struggling with a bit of car balance today, and it was awkward to drive. The upgrade seems to help us quite a bit in the high speed, and I did not have the complete upgrade this weekend, so that’s part of it, and the rest is car balance. I am unsure how much the total package would have put us back into contention. We lacked pace the whole weekend; it has not been straightforward, and we have plenty of work to do.
I am looking forward to next week, but we need to make sure we learn from Austin to make sure Mexico is more successful.
CHRISTIAN HORNER, CEO and Team Principal
Firstly, congratulations to Ferrari; they drove a great race from the get-go, which was a well-deserved win for them. We lost pace compared to yesterday, so we need to take a look at it and understand it. We got front-limited rather than rear-limited. It changed around, and I am unsure whether that was temperature or a set-up change we made after the Sprint. We will, as I say, need to look into it. Max drove brilliantly today I thought, he defended well. There was obviously an issue at the end of the race, but the rules are very clear about that situation, and the stewards acted quickly, as all teams have been asking of them.
All in all there are a lot of positives to take from today, the Team did a good job at turning things around from Singapore but we still have a long way to go. But to outscore our main rival in the Drivers Championship by five points over the weekend, that’s okay! Now we look to Mexico, Checo’s home race, where we hope to build on what we have achieved here and continue to push in the right direction.
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