Verstappen fully backs Red Bull after pit stop drama

It was Max Verstappen responding in the way Max Verstappen does. When the Dutchman, after a long day in Miami and with the pole position secured, met with the Dutch press and was asked about the disappointing outcome of the sprint race – in which he received a time penalty for an unsafe release – Verstappen seemed to initially shrug it off.

“There’s nothing you can change about it now. You just have to look ahead. That was not ideal, but the qualifying was most important. That’s where you can score the most points tomorrow,” Verstappen told GPblog, among others.

Pressed on what went wrong at that particular pit stop, where Verstappen was released too early only to hit the incoming Kimi Antonelli, he was initially short on words: “A misjudgment with the pit stop.” He then explained: “You have all sorts of references, like the cars. When you can switch off the button or not. And that went wrong.”

For Verstappen, the penalty came at a particularly inconvenient time, because due to the safety car, the ten-second time penalty meant he fell back to the back of the field. Afterwards, Verstappen decided not to give his team a hard time. “I come in there and of course, they know it too. That’s why I’m not too... They understand that I’m not happy.”

With the championship in mind, at a time when McLaren has the upper hand, every point would have been important. “That’s right, this shouldn’t actually happen. But it does, then we have to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” said Verstappen, who confirmed it wasn’t the first time this season something went wrong during a pit stop.

Red Bull is no longer the benchmark in pit stops - as has been the case for years. Verstappen: “Other people try to improve too. I can’t say they are banging their heads against a wall every year. Everyone improves and for us, it’s just not going well at the moment.”