Although Max Verstappen once again secured a podium finish, something that seemed to be the maximum achievable for much of this Formula 1 season, there was certainly little satisfaction in the Red Bull hospitality on Sunday evening. Several team members acknowledged in the paddock that Kimi Antonelli's race pace was impossible to match, although both Red Bull drivers were frustrated that the team had failed to extract the full potential from its package in Austin.
๐ The Core Development
This was partly due to problems specific to this race, such as strategic decisions Verstappen was unhappy with โ particularly the insistence on sticking with the softer compounds while the harder ones seemed to work better โ and inconsistent behaviour from the power unit. But the difficult Sunday afternoon at the Circuit of the Americas was also caused by two problems that have repeatedly cropped up this year: poor starts and technical issues with the team radio.
All of this led to frustration for Isack Hadjar , who summed it up as follows in the media pen:โAt the moment, it's the little things we canโt do.
๐ Background & Sector Context
"I have poor radio, I don't even know what's happening. And whenever I drop the clutch, it's going into a nightmare. If we fix these two issues, we might already be on the podium. It seems like we can do the hardest things, but we canโt do the silly things.โ
By 'the hardest things', he was naturally referring to the fact that Red Bull has managed to overturn its enormous gap to the front of the field. In Australia, China and Japan, the average deficit in race pace was 1.2 seconds per lap, and making up that kind of ground over the course of a season is certainly no small feat.
๐ Industry & Real-World Impact
At the same time, tackling the start problem and getting the radio issues under control has proved more complicated than expected. When Autosport put those observations to Laurent Mekies, referring to Hadjar's comments, the team principal clarified that the two aspects needed to be treated separately. Yes, the radio problem is unacceptable for a top team and must be resolved before the end of this year, but the start issue is more complex and will remain an obstacle until 2027.
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๐ฎ Strategic Outlook & What Lies Ahead
โI guess there are two different ways to answer your question," said Mekies. โI think there is some truth in what Isack is saying, meaning that we are all frustrated to struggle with radio issues for the second race in a row. It's making everyone's lives very difficult, so it is true that it's something that we would like to fix quite quickly, because it's an item that should be working without using too much of our energy.
โSo he's right on that one. The start is a slightly more complex issue to solve.โ
