Red Bull’s Laurent Mekies admits that Kimi Antonelli and Mercedes were “faster than us” in last weekend’s United States Grand Prix, as Max Verstappen could only finish third.
Red Bull entered the event in Austin on the crest of a wave with Verstappen having taken back-to-back wins in Malaysia and Singapore.
The Dutchman started on the front row alongside polesitter Antonelli but failed to challenge the Mercedes driver at the start before Red Bull decided to utilise a two-stop strategy.
With Antonelli and Mercedes sticking to a one-stop, the young Italian was never seriously threatened as he won by 13 seconds from Charles Leclerc, the Ferrari driving having passed Verstappen in the closing stages.
“I think Kimi had more pace than us today. I don’t think we can use any excuse of tyres or of strategy. I think Kimi was faster than us today. Fair play, and well done to him,” said Team Principal Mekies.
“It’s probably fair to say that one-stop and two-stop looks very close in terms of race times. We split our cars, as you have seen. I think Ferrari was on two stops, and I think McLaren was one-stop. So I think in race time, they were probably very, very close.
“It’s probably fair to say that we normally enjoy a bit of an advantage compared to competition with the softer compounds, and today we have struggled to use that advantage.
“We have suffered some fairly high deg with Max on the two sets of soft compounds that we had – and that certainly didn’t help materialising the second stop.”
Red Bull’s strategy played out with a new voice over the radio for Verstappen, as Tom Hart filled in the role for regular race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase, who is set to move to McLaren.
Mekies believes Hart did a great job during a baptism of fire, with he and GP set to alternate the role until the end of the season.
“I think he did an excellent job, and you see me smiling because I certainly remember what it is to be on your first race as a race engineer,” said Mekies.
“And he picked a fairly complicated race to do that, but that was not his choice! But joke aside, I think he really did an excellent job.
“First Qualifying, first race, he has managed to channel very well the work of the engineering teams behind him to Max. And of course the race was a complicated race, and we are probably a bit frustrated with the P3, which is the good news.
“But I really think he did an excellent job, and he was very well supported by GP as well in the background. You cannot recreate a relationship in no time. But I have every confidence that we are going to see him ramping up and building that relationship with Max.”
One area of improvement that Mekies is keen to see is in regards to Red Bull’s starts, with both Verstappen and team mate Isack Hadjar, who finished sixth, losing positions on the opening lap due to poor launches and sub-optimal battery deployment.
“As much as we have reduced the gap to competition, and you may remember how bad our starts were at the beginning of the year, we are still not the benchmark,” he said.
“And yes, the fact that the car in the meantime improved a lot and is fighting closer to the front makes that deficit even more painful now, because competition around us is very strong.
“On one side, I’m confident that we will continue to reduce the gap to the competition from now to the end of the year, because every race we learn, every race we come up with small ways to close the gap.
“On the other side, I equally know that we will not be the benchmark before the end of the season, that it will require some significant design and hardware changes, and that this is something that we will see only next year.”
