Red Bull
Max Verstappen, 3rd
"It wasn’t the strongest race for me, as there were a lot of things that didn’t work out and we seemed to experience different problems. The biggest question mark is why the tyres didn’t really work, while the harder compounds actually did really well, so that’s something to analyse. We struggled with engine consistency throughout the race, which we’ll need to work on, but it’s still a podium, so if you look at the beginning of the year and where we are now, we’ll take that. We’ve had quite a few podiums in a row, but at the same time, our target is always to be first, and we want to win more. It’s nice to see that we are now third in the Constructors’ Championship. The target for the rest of the year will be to keep that position. It’ll be tough, but we’ll keep working.”
Isack Hadjar, 6th
"It’s been a frustrating end to the weekend. We didn’t have a great start and lost two positions to both of the Ferraris, but from then on we settled into a rhythm and found really strong pace in the first stint. I felt good on the Soft tyre and I was lapping similar to the leaders, so the performance was there. I’ve been working so hard on the race pace, so it was good to see it in action. As the race went on, the tyre degradation was more manageable, so we moved onto a one-stop strategy. Unfortunately, we suffered a system issue in the pit lane which really compromised us for the rest of the race. We did a good job to keep P6 and bring a few points to the Team from what was an up-and-down weekend.”
Laurent Mekies, Team Principal
"It’s fair to say that, despite a 12th podium of the season with Max finishing third, we are leaving Austin not fully satisfied. We lost a bit of our edge today, and I don't think we had enough pace to fight with Kimi, who had a very strong race, so well done to him. Max’s car hit some debris around lap eight and picked up some damage. On top of that, we had a few issues that hurt the balance and, as a result, the pace dropped off, the degradation increased, and Max couldn't hang on to second place. It was a similar story for Isack, whose race was compromised by the start and then by a couple of problems during the race. Once again, the starts weren’t perfect, but the Team is working to make sure we have the tools to fix that in the future.
"A challenging Sunday, but we’ll take the podium knowing that we didn’t fully realize the potential of the car today, and we’ll take learnings from this weekend to come back stronger next week in Mexico. Despite all that, we have now moved up to third in the Constructors’ Championship, and Max is now only six points behind second place in the Drivers’ Championship.”
