Max Verstappen elated with the F1 US GP win which forced him to admit that title possible, as Laurent Mekies expands on the situation further.
The F1 sprint crash for McLaren duo of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri already made things for the better for Red Bull and Verstappen in US GP. The Dutchman took pole and eventually secured the win to cut the points gap to 40 against points leader Piastri, who was only fifth in the order.
Verstappen has managed to cut the points gap from 104 to now 40, with five races and two sprints to go. All the while, McLaren has made a mess even though they still have a faster car in their pocket. Some relentless upgrades and better understanding of the car has helped Red Bull.
It has allowed Verstappen to be in a position where he can ease into things and do what he has always done – dominate. Until now, it has been a race by race thought process. But after Austin, the Dutchman has started to believe that maybe he can do it and secure a fifth title on the bounce.
“Yeah, a perfect weekend for us,” said Verstappen. “I think what was crucial was the first stint where I could build a bit of a gap, because I think after that, it basically stabilised pretty much after the pit stop until the end. I think tyre management was very important today, and it wasn’t very straightforward because there were some laps where you had a very different feeling or balance, grip — bit weirdly, better or worse.
“So, yeah, it’s one of those days where you just need to try and make no mistakes, try to drive it as consistent as you can, drive around the bumps as much as possible. But, yeah, for us to win again today is incredible. I think it [the car] was a bit better, even though I think it’s still not where I wanted it to be, let’s say it like that. But nevertheless, yeah, we won the race, which of course is the most important.
“I think then it would be a very close race. Yeah. Every time I think that Lando was in clean air, we were very evenly matched. Maybe at times, he was a bit faster as well. So, yeah, it wouldn’t have been the gap that it was at the end,” summed up Verstappen. The Dutchman elaborated on why he started to believe now about his title prospects and not before.
After a cutdown of 64 points, Verstappen admitted that in Zandvoort, this was unthinkable. But his run so far has made it possible, even though it is an outside chance. “Yeah, I think we need to be perfect until the end, to have a chance,” he continued. “Yeah. We caught up a lot. But at the same time, you know, the gaps are very small.
“I think every weekend you need to try and be perfect, and that’s what we’ll try to do until the end. I mean, I know that we need to be perfect ‘til the end to have a chance, so that’s what we just need to focus on. And, I don’t know. I mean, like I said before, it’s super close, and just attention to detail will make the difference.
“Trying to get the best set-up on the car every weekend and then try not to make mistakes. So that’s what we’ll try to do. I would have told him he was an idiot [if in Zandvoort he was told that in future this would happen]. But, yeah, we found a good way with the car. It’s simple as that. Of course, we put some upgrades on the car.
“But we just understood our car a bit better — 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,” summed up Verstappen.
Team boss Mekies pretty much concurred with Verstappen amid a history-making time. The Frenchman echoed that the team has just managed to understand the car better in tandem with some of the updates, which has certainly helped. He feels the team has cut down on McLaren’s advantage from the first half and that has helped it to counter attack the Woking-based team.
Mekies doesn’t thinks it is one or the other, but it is collective effort where Verstappen is the key factor to make things possible. The Frenchman also addressed the FIA investigation, but stayed away from elaborating on what actually happened, as reported by various media like The Race.
It stated – through sources – that the Red Bull mechanic was trying to remove an extra sticker from the grid wall, which was put up by McLaren to help Norris to identify his grid box and line. Apparently, the team has tried to remove it in previous races as well, but this time, it happened on the formation lap.
This triggered the safety procedures as track was green and Red Bull was handed 50,000 euros fine, of which 25,000 euros was suspended – provided it doesn’t happen again in F1 2025. The Milton Keynes-based team is trying everything to assert dominance over McLaren.
They are themselves embroiled in a situation with Norris and Piastri. For Verstappen, there will be a small blip in Mexico, when his car will be taken up by F2 racer Arvid Lindblad for the mandated FP1 rookie session. This will set the Dutchman back by a bit in his preparation.
History being written –
Mekies: “I think watching Max driving is watching history in the making. You are using the right words. He surprises us every time he goes out on track, he surprises us on how much he’s pushing us between a session and another, how much sensitivity he has in stuff that sometimes we can see and stuff that we cannot see. So I think watching him is watching history in the making, so it’s a fair point. We don’t separate Max and the car and the team. It’s one group and as we said, Max is not sitting outside of the project, watching the project. He’s at the heart of the project. So as we just said, we do not feel we are in a dominant position. But we certainly feel that we have cancelled out a large part of the deficit we had in the first part of the season.
“And now it’s down to the last details. But don’t get me wrong, even on a weekend like today, there will be things we can learn. There will be things that we didn’t get fully right. And that’s where our focus, that’s where our intensity goes. Analysing our data and challenging each other, because that’s what we do. And getting the car in the best possible shape for Mexico. I guess he has been investing himself so hard into supporting the team, supporting the project to get back to competitiveness. I’m sure then when you are actually starting to fight for this better position, I’m sure it brings even more out of him.”
Strategy, advantage –
Mekies: “Yeah, you’re right. After the sprint, obviously we got lucky in the sprint with McLaren crashing at turn one. So we didn’t have that reference against them. We’ve seen George putting a large amount of pressure on us, especially in the early part of the sprint. Max not being completely comfortable with the rear of the car quite early in the sprint. So again, another very good example, risk taking and how this team goes racing. With the support of everyone at the factory, we had the choice between not doing anything or trying to address it. And again, a lot of many analysis, many difficult discussions, but ultimately a big learning in making some change, going into quality.
“It seems we unlocked more performance out of it and certainly today the situation was different compared to the sprint. I think you’re right. I think, if you look at the pace, I think McLaren is probably very, very close to us in terms of race pace today. If you consider where they have finished and as you say, the battle Lando had with Charles, you would probably have finished very, very close to us. So, it’s what we were saying earlier, you have three or four teams very, very close. And whether he’s nailing it, either in quality or in the races, he’s taking it home.”
FIA investigation –
Mekies: “Look, it’s never very nice to comment on something before the stewards’ decision is being made. I mean, we fully respect the stewards, but just to tell you what I know, I think we were summoned because it was felt that sometime during the grid procedures, one of our guys had not followed the official, some martial instructions and we spoke with our people, they are very positive that they have followed martial instructions at all time, so I think it’s probably a misunderstanding there. Again, we went to see the video with the FIA and for sure it’s something we can do better in the future, but certainly on our side we do not feel that we have ignored any instructions, we did not get any specific instructions. So I think it’s a very small thing, but nonetheless something we’ll address in the future.”
Cut down on McLaren –
Mekies: “So I think it’s fair to say you are right, I think it’s saying that in terms of relative performance, they don’t have the advantage they had in the first part of the season anymore compared to us. So I think we are now in a situation, even back in Spa when we won the sprint, we were still a fair half a second slower than them every lap. Even in Zandvoort, after the shutdown, we were still probably half a second slower than them every lap. So I think that has now gone.
“And we are in situations where you go to a race weekend and you have three or four teams that can fight for the win if they extract everything their car can produce on that track. So I don’t think anyone is in a dominant position. I think every race, every remaining race will be about which one of these four teams is nailing the track layout, the conditions, the temperatures, the tyres, and then that guy will win the race.”
Here’s race start: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-united-states-grand-prix-leclerc-snatches-p2-from-norris-on-the-race-start.1846439089823431926
Here’s how F1 US GP panned out
Here’s McLaren on threat of Max Verstappen