Max Verstappen claimed that Red Bull put him on a strategy that had not been agreed beforehand at the United States Grand Prix.
Verstappen finished third in Austin on a Soft-Soft-Medium two-stop, while Andrea Kimi Antonelli won with a one-stop from Mediums to Hards.
Qualifying second, Verstappen was immediately under threat from the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, leaving Antonelli to sail off into the distance.
The Dutchman admitted that the RB22 was likely not up to scratch in terms of challenging Antonelli, due to its “average” characteristics on a track such as the Circuit of the Americas.
But speaking to Viaplay, Verstappen said he had expected to go onto Mediums for his second stint, not a second set of Softs.
“I’ve had more enjoyable races,” he said. “Not that much really went well. The start wasn’t good and neither was the way we handled the tyre choice.
“Soft, soft, medium – that wasn’t agreed beforehand, I don’t really understand why that happened.
“Everyone immediately knows you’re doing a two-stopper [after pitting for Softs first]. We’d agreed on the Medium, but I need to have a word about it. [I have] No idea why it happened that way.”
High degredation something to ‘review together’
Team Principal Laurent Mekies said he had not heard Verstappen’s comments, but suggested the second Soft stint may have caught him off guard.
“I’m not sure what he was referring to because I didn’t hear what he said,” he said. “But I think one thing that may have surprised him is the fact that we elected to put him on the soft for the second stint, which was the baseline option for us.
“Unfortunately, as you may have seen in that second stint, we suffered fairly high degradation. So it is probably one of the things we will review together on why we degraded that much in that second stint.”
Verstappen also pointed to the Hard tyre, which proved quick for others but which he never used.
“They didn’t put that on my car,” the 29-year-old said. “That’s not what we’d agreed.”
Beyond strategy, Verstappen said inconsistent engine behaviour had dogged him since qualifying.
“I also had too many problems with the engine, but that was already the case in qualifying. Just really inconsistent,” he said.
“One corner there’s not enough engine braking, so it just carries on through, and then the next one it’s suddenly really aggressive. Another moment it wasn’t shifting properly. I can’t make sense of it.
“I’m not going to complain every lap, but it just wasn’t good. The whole weekend wasn’t good, and in the race it was even worse.
“The balance of the car wasn’t optimal, but there were also too many issues. You just can’t drive with any consistency when something’s different every single time. Every lap, every corner, it’s just not consistent.”
Red Bull split its strategies between Verstappen and Isack Hadjar, who finished sixth. Mekies said softer compounds normally suit Red Bull, but the team could not exploit that in Austin.
“It’s probably fair to say that one-stop and two-stop were very close in terms of race times. We split our cars, as you saw,” he said.
“It’s also probably fair to say that we normally enjoy a bit of an advantage compared to the competition with the softer compounds, and we struggled to use that advantage. We suffered some fairly high deg with Max on the two sets of soft compounds that we had, and that certainly didn’t help.”
Mekies was nonetheless clear that strategy did not cost Red Bull the win.
“I think Kimi had more pace than us. I don’t think we can use any excuse of tyres or of strategy. Kimi was faster. Fair play and well done to him.”
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