Verstappen wants an explanation from Red Bull: “That wasn’t what we agreed”

“I’ve had more enjoyable races,” Verstappen told Viaplay. Over the team radio after the race, he had already given Red Bull Racing a list of his complaints.

“Not a lot went right, really. The start wasn’t good. The tyre choice, and the way we did it—soft, soft and then medium—hadn’t been agreed upon beforehand. So I don’t quite understand what that was about,” he said.

The Dutchman lost second place to Charles Leclerc at the start, but reclaimed it on the opening lap. Red Bull brought him in on lap 14 for a fresh set of soft tyres, before his second stop on lap 31. Verstappen was particularly puzzled by the decision to fit softs again at the first stop. It also immediately revealed Red Bull’s two-stop strategy to its rivals.

“That hadn’t been agreed upon either,” he revealed. “I mean, then everyone immediately knows you’re doing a two-stop strategy,” he sighed. Asked whether he had expected medium tyres at that stop, Verstappen confirmed that he had. “We need to talk about that. I have no idea why that happened. I couldn’t get them [the hard tyres] on at all,” Verstappen said, referring to the set his teammate Hadjar did receive—which the French-Algerian driver, in turn, was not at all happy with.

Verstappen was also frustrated by the engine’s behaviour. He said the problems had already affected him in qualifying and continued to crop up during the race. In particular, he did not know what to expect from the engine under braking.

“There were too many problems with the engine as well, but that was already the case in qualifying yesterday,” Verstappen continued. “It was just very inconsistent. In one corner there wasn’t enough engine braking, so it kept pushing, and then the next time it was very aggressive. It wouldn’t shift properly either. You couldn’t predict what it was going to do.”

The complaints could be heard towards the end of the first stint and throughout the second stint. Verstappen said that was not all. “The whole race just wasn’t good. Of course, I’m not going to complain every lap. But it just wasn’t good—the whole weekend wasn’t, and the race especially.” The balance did not help either: “I don’t think the car’s balance was optimal to begin with. But there were too many problems as well. You simply can’t drive consistently when something different is happening all the time. Every lap, every corner was just inconsistent.”

In the closing stages, Verstappen lost second place to Leclerc, while Lewis Hamilton was closing in. Valtteri Bottas then stopped on track, triggering a Virtual Safety Car and leaving the Ferrari driver with less time to attack. Asked whether the interruption saved his podium finish, Verstappen answered without hesitation: “Absolutely, yes.” But it did not give him much satisfaction. “Yeah, you know, it doesn’t make much difference whether you finish third or fourth.”

Hamilton had already factored into Verstappen’s decision about whether to challenge Leclerc. Verstappen asked his team how much room he had to defend. “When they told me how far behind me he was and how much he was catching me each lap, there was no point fighting Charles. I would basically have lost that position,” he explains.

His overtakes on Leclerc on the opening lap and later on Lando Norris did give him something to be pleased about. Verstappen did not attach much significance to them: “Those are two positives against a whole lot of negatives in the race.”