Red Bull team principal Laurent Méquise highlighted Verstappen’s approach to the start of the race after he passed Lando Norris on lap one at last weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix, paving the way for victory.
On Saturday night, Verstappen started second and Norris tried hard to stay inline from the Red Bull driver, but ran deep and Verstappen quickly passed him. After the race, Mekies praised Verstappen’s approach before both McLarens were disqualified for technical violations.
“Lap one, turn one, he never makes a mistake, you know?” Mekies said. “That was typical Max. He did it well, got off to a good start and won Land. You can judge better than me, but he never does anything wrong.
“From that point on, in the early stages of the race, George (Russell) was actually able to put more pressure on us than we thought he would. So George was putting a good amount of pressure on us that lasted maybe five or 10 laps, but then he started to drop off, probably with graining or something else.”
“So at that stage the race started to get a little more under control, which was when George touched out to DRS. Then George pitted and there was a key moment of whether or not we were going to cover him. I think it was a bit tricky at that stage because we weren’t sure how fast he could go on the new set of hard tires. We decided to go out. Max kept pushing and was able to match George’s pace effectively.”
“Nevertheless, as you can see, when we pitted after eight laps, the gap between the two cars was still very close, so there was little to separate them. And again on the hard, we could see that the (medium) tires were in good condition when we took them off the car, and Max knew he could push more, so I think he was more confident on the hard. I think he probably had even more pace than what we saw in the car.”
“There were a few times in the second stint when Lando was pushing that we asked him to pick up the pace and every time we needed him he picked up the pace.”
Verstappen was able to comfortably pull away from the field in the second half of the race, which Mekies said was even more impressive considering the unknown conditions the team faced in Las Vegas.
“Overall, I think this was definitely a masterclass from him,” he said. “During the race weekend, the practice sessions were all stopped for some reason, so no one was properly prepared.
“I think what made it so strong on Saturday was the tire degradation, the performance, the race pace, Max having success again, and everyone back at Milton Keynes and the racecourse did very well because there was a lot more (to process) than in a normal race. There were really so many factors that we knew were going to be new on race day.”
