Verstappen eyes 13th victory of the season at US Grand Prix
Max Verstappen will look to earn a record-equalling 13th win of the season after another impressive showing in qualifying at the Circuit of the Americas.
The Dutch driver was unable to match the speed of the Ferrari duo of Carlos Sainz and Charles LeClerc but showed plenty of pace as he claimed third place.
However, the now two-time world champion will start Sunday’s race from second on the grid as LeClerc has a 10-place penalty. Verstappen’s Oracle Red Bull Racing teammate Sergio Pérez was fourth, but will start from ninth because of a five-place grid penalty.
Should there be an Oracle Red Bull Racing victory and fastest lap bonus point for either Verstappen or Pérez at the United Stated Grand Prix then the team would also wrap up their first constructors’ title since 2013.
Scuderia AlphaTauri duo Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda will both hope to finish in the points, with the French driver starting from 11th on the grid and his Japanese teammate lining up in 13th.
It was a tough day for both teams after learning shortly before qualifying that Red Bull co-owner Dietrich Mateschitz had sadly passed away at the age of 78. A giant of the sport, Verstappen and co paid tribute to the Austrian.
Oracle Red Bull Racing
MAX VERSTAPPEN - 3rd - starting from 2nd
“It was tough to hear the news ahead of qualifying, the result today doesn’t really matter. What does matter is reflecting on Dietrich and what he did for us as a Team, the whole of Formula One and the wider Red Bull family. Dietrich was always super kind and caring to me. I will forever remember the last visit I had with him a month ago or so, at the time it was very special but it’s defintiely more special now. He believed in me from such a young age and many other younger drivers and gave incredible opportunities to so many people. Without him I would not be sitting here today. So, it’s an incredibly tough day.”
SERGIO PÉREZ - 4th - starting from 9th
"This is a sad day for the whole Red Bull family, it makes you realise there are much more important things in life. Dietrich’s influence on sport and the way he supported athletes globally truly made a difference to the world. He gave me an opportunity that no one else ever gave me and I will always be grateful to him. It was a very sad moment when we heard the news because we know we are about to become champions and he won’t be here to see us do it. The whole Team are going to be racing for him and his family tomorrow and I really hope we can bring the result he would want from us. We couldn’t find the maximum today with just three sets of tyres but it was a weekend where we knew we had the penalty so we have put the focus on tomorrow and the race, hopefully that pays off. It will be tricky to get up there on this track but we will be trying our best because it would really mean a lot this weekend.”
Scuderia AlphaTauri
PIERRE GASLY - 13th - starting from 11th
“I’d felt happy in the car up until Quali, we’d done a good job in the practice sessions and been in the top 10, there was definitely potential to make it to Q3 today, so that’s why I’m frustrated. I struggled with the brakes and just couldn’t get the temperature into them, so it’s a real shame. Looking to tomorrow, I don’t see why we can’t fight for the points, we will need to capitalise on every opportunity, and I am confident that we can make up ground tomorrow.”
YUKI TSUNODA - 15th - starting from 13th
“I’m frustrated with our performance in Quali today. Of course, I exceeded track limits on my last lap, but I don’t think it made that much of a difference, we didn’t have the pace to get through to Q3. We’ll go away tonight and see what more we can extract from the car. I’ll push as much as possible in the race to try and aim for a points finish.”
JODY EGGINTON - Technical Director
“The setup changes we made overnight were not excessive, as the Friday balance was ballpark and FP3 car balance was pretty much as expected with no major issues. This meant our changes ahead of Qualifying were limited to the normal fine tuning of tools and some minor aero related optimisation. Going into Qualifying, we expected that there would be a very tight midfield battle to fight for a Q3 place, and indeed this is what we saw. We navigated Q1 without any fuss whilst Q2 was less straight forward, as Pierre struggled with his front brakes and Yuki reported that his car balance was a bit too much toward understeer on his last set. He then also exceeded track limits at Turn 9, although this in itself did not prevent him making the cut for Q3. Overall, I feel we have maybe not extracted the most from our package in Qualifying and we will go through the data to understand why and what we could have done better. Our focus now shifts to the race, with the objective being to get our cars moving forward into points scoring positions.”
