Max Verstappen at COTA. Photo: RacePictures

Verstappen: “I’d have told him he was an idiot”

11:39, 23 Oct

Updated: 12:16, 23 Oct

byDrew Murphy

Max Verstappen revealed after his United States Grand Prix win that he did not believe he could be 40 points off the title after being 104 points back off Oscar Piastri after Zandvoort.

“I would have told him he was an idiot."

- Max Verstappen

After claiming victory in Austin and shrinking the gap between himself and the two McLaren drivers, Verstappen is in red-hot form going into the final five races of the season.

The Dutchman was asked whether he would have believed someone if they told him he would be in contention for the Drivers' Championship.

He replied: “I would have told him he was an idiot. But, yeah, we found a good way with the car. It's as simple as that.

“Of course, we put some upgrades on the car, but we just understood our car a bit better and where we wanted it to perform better.

“And, yeah, every weekend we try to achieve it. Some weekends, you know, it's better than others, but in general, it's been way more straightforward the last few weekends compared to before those races.

“So that's what we need to try and extract out of it now every single weekend.”

max-verstappen-greets-lando-norris-at-cota

Lando Norris congratulates Max Verstappen at COTA. Photo: RacePictures

So what has Red Bull done to turn it around?

Last month, the RB21 was upgraded with a new floor development.

Initially introduced at Monza, the switch provided a noticeable boost in downforce and gave the team new options for car setup. The team also brought a change to the front wing in Singapore.

Back in September, technical director Pierre Waché explained to GPblog how the upgrade has opened up a new direction: “I hope so. It gave us a different direction for the setup.

"Already in Zandvoort, we found it, and now we have optimised around it. And I think we will see if it works for different races. So it is a good thing.”

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