Max Verstappen outlines what he thinks prompted Red Bull’s dramatic fall from grace in Saturday’s qualifying session in Mexico, only to win on Sunday.
Max Verstappen of Red Bull has detailed why he believes the team struggled in qualifying at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez before recovering strongly in the race on Sunday.
Throughout practice, Red Bull appeared to be in control of the Mexico City Grand Prix, but Mercedes surprised everyone by locking out the front row in qualifying. Mercedes was a quarter of a second ahead of Red Bull on the first runs of Q3, and the margin was not insignificant.
On Sunday, however, Red Bull responded with force, with Verstappen blasting into the lead at Turn 1 and disappearing into the distance for the rest of the race.
After the race, Verstappen was questioned why there was such a significant difference between Saturday and Sunday.
“Some tracks, I think they’re just so critical with tyre temperatures and tyre warmup that, if you nail it, it can be amazing,” Verstappen said.
“If you’re just under it or whatever, you lack a lot of lap time. And that’s what happened to us [in qualifying]. So I always knew this was not going to be a problem in the race, because once the tyres are up to temperature, the car’s behaving normally.”
A track-specific issue?
Because the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez is held at a high altitude, the teams must rely on mechanical and tyre grip rather than outright downforce.
Verstappen noted that not being able to get the tyres to work efficiently lost them more lap time than they would have gained at a different circuit.
“I think it was just up to making the tyres work,” he said. “I think we didn’t nail that in qualifying, and especially Q2 and Q3, they [Mercedes] started to pull away from us, and we need to understand that a bit better.
“But it’s just a bit track-specific, because you have already such little grip. Everything you do with the tyre can make a massive difference compared to a track with more normal downforce.”
In the Drivers’ Championship, Verstappen now leads Lewis Hamilton by 19 points, while Red Bull has closed the gap to Mercedes in the Constructors’ standings to just one point.
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