{"id":942565,"date":"2026-10-22T22:04:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T22:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/942565\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T22:04:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T22:04:15","slug":"max-verstappen-slams-unacceptable-bumps-at-austin-f1-track-its-out-of-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/942565\/","title":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen slams \u201cunacceptable\u201d bumps at Austin F1 track: \u201cIt’s out of control\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the United States Grand Prix came up during the Formula 1 press conference in Singapore, Max Verstappen<\/a> immediately joked that he would have to order a new spine. The four-time world champion had followed the World Endurance Championship round in Texas \u2013 The Lone Star Le Mans, held over the weekend of 6 September \u2013 and said he was shocked by the condition of the circuit.<\/p>\n

Although\u00a0Verstappen was still able to laugh about it with Kimi Antonelli at the time, he made it clear during the media day in Austin that he is genuinely concerned about the \u201cunacceptable\u201d track conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom what I saw in\u00a0WEC, it was extremely badly bumpy. I’m not really looking forward to that, to be honest, for your spine,\u201d said Verstappen. \u201cI was joking about that in the last race, but it’s not really a joke to be honest. We mentioned this already for years, that it’s actually getting a bit out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem stems from the ground beneath the circuit. Built on Texas\u2019 infamous high-plasticity clay, the track suffers from a severe shrink-swell effect as weather conditions change. This constant shifting leaves the circuit extremely bumpy, particularly in the heavy braking zones where the asphalt is subjected to the greatest stress.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the 2026 race, certain sections have been resurfaced again, including the stretch between Turns 9 and 11. In addition, repair work was carried out to address the bumps between Turns 12 and 19. Two years ago, ahead of the 2024 United States Grand Prix, the entire track was resurfaced.<\/p>\n

When\u00a0Motorsport.com asked Verstappen whether he believes more needs to be done, the four-time world champion stressed that the location itself should not be used by the organisers as an excuse.<\/p>\n

\"Max <\/p>\n

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n

Photo by: Sam Bagnall \/ Sutton Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s very bad. Of course, you can use the excuse that the soil is the problem, but then you should have known that and you need to make sure that you reinforce it more,\u201d the Dutchman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, I love this track, I love this place. It’s one of the best layouts ever and it’s one of the, I would say, best venues and best cities to be at. But for me, the bumps that we have are unacceptable.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver time, they’ve been grinding a little bit here and there, but you’re putting a plaster on the big problem and that’s just what’s underneath. That’s what you actually need to tackle in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0Verstappen, far-reaching measures are needed, with attention being paid not only to the tarmac itself, but also to the soil beneath it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that, of course, means you need to really fully open up the track,\u201d he added. \u201cThat costs a lot of money and time, but honestly, that’s the only way to get rid of it. Because yeah, these bumps are not natural and they are out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why F1’s 2026 cars could make things even worse for drivers<\/p>\n

At first glance, it might seem like a blessing in disguise that F1 no longer uses the ground-effect cars of recent years. After all, those cars had to be run particularly low and stiff, but when asked by\u00a0Motorsport.com, Verstappen made it clear that the 2026 machinery could actually make things even more painful.<\/p>\n

\"Race <\/p>\n

Race start<\/p>\n

Photo by: Eric Le Galliot<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s probably worse because we have very low ride heights while cornering,\u201d said Verstappen. \u201cOn the straights you have the SM mode, so you go up. But in most places under the braking especially, you actually bottom out more than before. And most of the bumps are under braking or in the corner, not on the actual straight.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder braking, it’s like actually a very stressful moment \u2013 especially when there are these kind of awkward bumps, not just bumps from the track getting older, but bumps from the surface underneath, the soil just moving up and down.\u00a0Sometimes it’s very hard to know what to expect, or if you\u2019re a tiny bit offline, you don’t know what is there because no one really drives there. So, yeah, it’s really not nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of this means that drivers’ backs take a considerable beating.\u00a0Verstappen says he has already experienced this at COTA in previous years.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year, for example, you pull around 5-6G in a corner, but I had some impacts, the vertical load, which was like over 9G on my spine,\u201d he said. \u201cI can tell you that it\u2019s really not fun and especially the older you get, you think about that more and more. That’s not what you want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Verstappen added that his spine is already not in the best possible condition after more than 11 seasons in F1: \u201cI think sometimes people don’t really understand that. I can tell you from the checks that I’ve done from my spine, the bottom end of the spine doesn’t look that great.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that’s part of racing and I know that can be part of sport, but it’s of course also further damage from the cars that we had the last few years. And now if we continue finding this acceptable to drive on, then you are going to suffer from that much more.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople can say, yeah, but there are worse sports out there for damage to parts of your body. For sure, but that’s why I’m not doing them. So, yeah, it’s not nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the United States Grand Prix came up during the Formula 1 press conference in Singapore, Max Verstappen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":942566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,98681,578,576,577,1885,322736,2190,82,102377],"class_list":["post-942565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-circuit-of-the-americas","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-max-verstappen","tag-max-verstappen-slams-u201cunacceptableu201d-bumps-at-austin-f1-track-u201cits-out-of-controlu201d","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-sports","tag-united-states-gp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=942565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/942566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=942565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=942565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=942565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}