Why US GP has left Verstappen and Hadjar furious with Red Bull
Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar let rip at Red Bull after Formula 1's United States Grand Prix for a series of avoidable problems that left them unable to fully capitalise on the potential of their car.
Things went wrong at the start as Verstappen and Hadjar in particular made poor getaways from second and third on the grid.
The pair were then hampered throughout the race by radio problems that made communication with the pitwall difficult, while Verstappen was annoyed about the choice of a two-stop strategy that left the door open for the one-stopping Kimi Antonelli to take a dominant win.
Despite a radio message from team principal Laurent Mekies immediately after the chequered flag confessing the team had "a few things to tidy up", it was clear that frustrations were high in the cockpit.
In a bleak post-race radio message after taking the chequered flag in third, Verstappen said: "Terrible: the pace, the wrong tyre, sh** pitstop, sh** engine braking. Nothing worked."
Speaking to Viaplay after the race about whether he agreed on the strategy call in committing to softs for the second stint when the harder compounds appeared to be in play, Verstappen said: "No, it wasn't agreed upon. That's why I don't get it. Then everyone would know we're doing a two-stop."
Later on, referencing struggles with balance and engine braking that were not helped by the ongoing radio problems, Verstappen sarcastically told the media: "Maybe we just start communicating in sign language. It's probably cheaper as well.
"It's a disaster. It's really frustrating, to be honest."
Hadjar was even angrier, as he suggested that Red Bull needed a new clutch design because of the repeated weak starts.
"It needs a redesign because at the moment it's too fragile," said Hadjar, who eventually came home sixth. "It's not coping well with temperatures. It's a real struggle."
And then he expressed bafflement about why a relatively simple thing such as the team radio was such a frustrating issue.
"At the moment it's the little things we can't do," he said. "I have a poor radio, I don't even know what's happening. I dropped the clutch, it's going into a nightmare.
"We fix these two already, we might be on the podium. The hardest things it seems like we can do, and the silly things we can't."
Red Bull stuck to what it knew
Mekies was well aware of the issues that turned a possible victory challenge into a frustrating afternoon for his drivers.
On Verstappen's strategy call, Red Bull said it needed to analyse why the degradation on that second stint had been so poor, considering that the opening part of the race against Antonelli had appeared to be quite evenly matched.
Asked about Verstappen's complaints, Mekies said: "I'm not sure what he was referring to, because I didn't hear what he said, but I think one thing that may have surprised him is the fact that we elected to put him in the second set on softs, [it] was certainly not the baseline option for us.
"Unfortunately, as you have seen in that second stint, we also suffered a fairly high degradation, so it was probably one of the things we will review together, on why we degraded that much in that second stint."
Mekies felt, however, that whatever strategy was chosen Antonelli’s pace advantage meant he would have won anyway - and Red Bull has traditionally gone better on the softer compounds.
"It's probably fair to say that we normally enjoy a bit of an advantage compared to competition with the softer compounds, and today we have struggled to use that advantage," he said.
"We have suffered some fairly high deg with Max on the two sets of softer compounds that we had, and that certainly didn't help materialising the second stop."
Verstappen certainly thought Red Bull had got sucked into a call based on how well its car had run on softs in recent races.
"At one point it was quite clear that the people on the harder compounds were finding a lot of grip, so I guess we also didn't really react to that," he said.
"Just probably sticking too much to our belief from the last two races, where the softer compounds were the fastest, and clearly here that didn't work."
No immediate fix
On the radio issue, Mekies said that Red Bull was confused about why it had been hit with this problem for the second race running, but said it was now a priority to fix.
"If we were understanding it, we would have solved it," he said. "So we don't fully understand why we are being hit by these issues.
"Certainly, I have to admit that the competition is doing a better job than us, because we can obviously hear everyone's radio, and we have been struggling more than what we would have liked to."
He added: "It's making everyone's lives very difficult, so it is true that it's something that we would like to fix quite quickly, because it's an item that should be working without using too much of our energy."
In terms of the poor starts and Hadjar's suggestion of the need for a clutch redesign, Mekies thought this was more a project for 2027 than the short term.
With starts reliant on a combination of elements - including engine, gearbox and clutch - it is not something that can be quickly addressed.
So while improvements could continue to be made to minimise the problems, a bigger fix is unlikely before the start of next year.
Mekies added: "As much as we have reduced the gap to competition, and you may remember how bad our starts were at the beginning of the year, we are still not the benchmark.
"The fact that the car in the meantime improved a lot, and is fighting closer to the front, makes that deficit even more painful now, because competition around us is very strong.
"On one side I'm confident that we will continue to reduce the gap to the competition from now to the end of the year, because every race we learn, every race we come up with small ways to close the gap.
"On the other side, I equally know that we will not be the benchmark before the end of the season, that it will require some significant design and hardware changes, and that this is something that we will see only next year."
