Red Bull's Strategy Fails Verstappen in Race

Verstappen vents frustration after a slow-paced race marked by a poor pit stop and a flawed strategy.

Max Verstappen finished sixth at the Italian Grand Prix but was somewhat frustrated afterward. While he believes Red Bull could not have achieved a better position, he feels his race could have gone better.

“I think we maximized the car in terms of position, but not in how we approached the race,” Verstappen stated.

“The pace was too slow, so we had to run our own race and made a poor pit stop. I think we didn’t optimize the strategy. Some cars made one stop, and we made two, which wasn’t the best.”

He also revealed he suffered an engine issue that didn’t help his pace: “For most of the race, we couldn’t use full engine power because of a problem, which doesn’t help. Overall, it was a bad race.”

“It would still have been a bad race with full engine power, but we might have been more competitive. We were in no man’s land. If we don’t change anything on the car, everything will go wrong from now until the end of the season. We have a lot of work to do.”

Verstappen feels there is nothing more to say after warning the team about his car’s behavior for several months now.

“Everyone knew very well what we needed to do. Now, we just need to turn things around. It’s not easy to do that very quickly. And if we can get that on the car, it will become easier to drive. Last year, we had a great car, the most dominant car of all time, and we turned it into a monster, so we need to reverse that trend.”

“No matter how many weeks it takes, we must continue to push and work hard. There are no excuses. Otherwise, titles will no longer be realistic for us.”

Sergio Perez was also frustrated, though he believes he played his role in helping Verstappen: “I’m quite disappointed; I expected it to be tough, but not to this extent. We were slow and had a lot of degradation, especially on medium tires.”

“I compromised my race to keep George behind, but it worked well because we managed to keep George behind, and he was close to Max at the finish, so it makes a difference for the team in terms of points scored today.”

The Mexican is surprised to see Verstappen having similar issues and assures the problem has been identified: “I feel like I’m in the same boat as the last eight or ten races, but suddenly, Max is having the same problems. There’s a bit of confusion, but there are clear data on the source of the problem.”