{"id":947408,"date":"2026-10-26T22:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T22:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/947408\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T22:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T22:12:13","slug":"red-bull-reveals-damage-behind-max-verstappens-us-gp-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/947408\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Bull reveals damage behind Max Verstappen&#8217;s US GP struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When your star driver gets out of the car after grabbing a podium and immediately tells the global broadcast that the pitstops, tyres, and engine braking were all complete garbage, it is up to the team principal to jump on the nearest microphone and put out the fire.<\/p>\n<p>Following\u00a0Verstappen&#8217;s\u00a0radio meltdown at the United States Grand Prix, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsport.com\/team\/red-bull-racing\/4\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Red Bull Racing<\/a> CEO and team principal Laurent Mekies went into full PR damage control mode. Instead of blaming the engineering department for botching the set-up, Mekies pointed the finger at some rogue carbon fibre.<\/p>\n<p>The phantom debris haunting Verstappen<\/p>\n<p>While <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsport.com\/driver\/max-verstappen\/17529\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Max Verstappen<\/a> complained about picking the wrong tyre compounds and dealing with awful engine braking, Mekies claimed the car was actually wounded just a few minutes after the lights went out.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Max\u2019s car hit some debris around lap eight and picked up some damage,&#8221; Mekies stated while speaking with the media after the race. &#8220;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&#8217;t hang on to second place.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" draggable=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1793052731_984_max-verstappen-red-bull-racing.jpg\" alt=\"Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" loading=\"lazy\"\/> <\/p>\n<p class=\"title\">Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n<p class=\"photographer\">Photo by: Mark Thompson \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Mekies admitted the team simply didn&#8217;t have the firepower to chase down race-winner Kimi Antonelli, who drove off into the Texas sunset relatively unchallenged.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It\u2019s fair to say that, despite a 12th podium of the season with Max finishing third, we are leaving Austin not fully satisfied,&#8221; the team principal confessed. &#8220;We lost a bit of our edge today, and I don&#8217;t think we had enough pace to fight with Kimi, who had a very strong race, so well done to him.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Acknowledging Hadjar&#8217;s nightmare<\/p>\n<p>Verstappen wasn&#8217;t the only driver screaming into his helmet on Sunday. His team-mate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsport.com\/driver\/isack-hadjar\/827922\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Isack Hadjar<\/a> suffered a catastrophic start due to a faulty clutch, followed by a total radio blackout that ruined his pit strategy. Mekies didn&#8217;t shy away from the mechanical failures, directly acknowledging that the team severely let the young driver down.<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" draggable=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1793052732_541_isack-hadjar-red-bull-racing.jpg\" alt=\"Isack Hadjar, Red Bull Racing\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" loading=\"lazy\"\/> <\/p>\n<p class=\"title\">Isack Hadjar, Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n<p class=\"photographer\">Photo by: Liam Fabre<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was a similar story for Isack, whose race was compromised by the start and then by a couple of problems during the race,&#8221; Mekies admitted. &#8220;Once again, the starts weren\u2019t perfect, but the team is working to make sure we have the tools to fix that in the future.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The championship silver lining for Red Bull<\/p>\n<p>Despite both drivers absolutely hating how their cars handled at the Circuit of the Americas, Red Bull actually walked away from the weekend in a fantastic mathematical position.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A challenging Sunday, but we\u2019ll take the podium knowing that we didn\u2019t fully realise the potential of the car today, and we\u2019ll take\u00a0learnings from this weekend to come back stronger next week in Mexico,&#8221; Mekies noted before highlighting the massive silver lining.<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" draggable=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1793052733_39_max-verstappen-red-bull-racing.jpg\" alt=\"Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Isack Hadjar, Red Bull Racing\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" loading=\"lazy\"\/> <\/p>\n<p class=\"title\">Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Isack Hadjar, Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n<p class=\"photographer\">Photo by: Logan Riely \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Despite all that, we have now moved up to third in the constructors\u2019 championship, and Max is now only six points behind second place in the drivers\u2019 championship.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If Red Bull can figure out how to stop the RB22 from eating its own clutch while dialling in the aerodynamic balance for the high-altitude air in Mexico City, Verstappen is in prime position to claim P2 in the standings before the season ends.<\/p>\n<p>            We want your opinion!<\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-auto\">What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?<\/p>\n<p>            <a href=\"#\" class=\"ms-link text-link font-bold\">Take our 5 minute survey.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-1 text-body\">&#8211; The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When your star driver gets out of the car after grabbing a podium and immediately tells the global&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":947409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,98681,578,576,577,11753,1885,2190,324279,82,102377],"class_list":["post-947408","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-laurent-mekies","tag-max-verstappen","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-red-bull-reveals-damage-behind-max-verstappens-us-gp-struggles","tag-sports","tag-united-states-gp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947408","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=947408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/947409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}