Verstappen takes the blame for pit stop fumble

Max Verstappen said that it was entirely his fault that he came in prematurely for his final pit stop during the United States Grand Prix before the team was ready for him.

"They told me to push hard the lap before and I thought that was an indication to box so I drove into pit lane and suddenly I realised they didn't box me," he said after the race.

"It was definitely my fault and not very clever."

Team principal Christian Horner confirmed that no message had been sent to Verstappen to pit, and that the driver had never signalled he was coming in by using the 'pit confirm' button on his steering wheel.

"No, there was no message to the car. He came into the pit lane and said 'I'm in the pit lane.' I know the guys change the tyres quickly but they need a little warning!"

Ultimately the pit stop miscue didn't cost Verstappen anything, as a gearbox issue moments later put him out of the race.

It appeared to take Verstappen some time to park the stricken Red Bull and he went past several marshal points and gaps in the barrier before finally pulling over and triggering a virtual safety car that handed the Mercedes front runners a free pit stop, much to the annoyance of Verstappen's team mate Daniel Ricciardo.

Verstappen said that on this occasion he had been simply following orders and that triggering the VSC while his car was craned away was very much not what he had wanted to happen.

"The team told me to keep on going. They said there was a serious issue. Then at one point they decided, 'Okay Max, stop the car over there.'

"Once you jump out, it was in neutral but the car suddenly got stuck. You can press a button on top but that didn't work so that's why the virtual safety car came out otherwise you can push the car into the gap."

Earlier in the race Verstappen had been in contention for a podium, passing Kimi Raikkonen early in the race and then pulling right up toi the back of Nico Rosberg's Mercedes at which point his race engineer told him to back off and conserve the tyres - at which point Verstappen had responded "I'm not here to finish fourth!"

"As a racer you always want to go forward," he explained afterwards. "That's why I passed Kimi, because they'd already said to try and save the tyres and I said I want to go forward.

"Once I arrived at Nico which is really hard to get really close because he was also a little bit in the draft of Daniel, the pace was good - I could easily follow the guys in front but you got stuck behind them and can't do your own race

"I backed off a bit to save my tyres so ran three seconds and it worked really well," he added. "But it didn't make any difference at the end of the result."

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