“They’ve been too quick”: Max Verstappen brutally honest on fighting chance with Ferrari and Mercedes in Las Vegas GP

Max Verstappen’s Candid Take on Ferrari and Mercedes’ Las Vegas GP Challenge

Max Verstappen has once again shown why he’s one of Formula 1’s most outspoken and competitive drivers. Ahead of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the reigning world champion gave a brutally honest assessment of his rivals, particularly Ferrari and Mercedes, acknowledging the progress they’ve made this season. However, Verstappen made it clear that he still sees the competition as being a few steps behind his dominant Red Bull team.

“They’ve been too quick,” Verstappen said, reflecting on the challenges that Ferrari and Mercedes have posed throughout the season. While both teams have made strides in improving their performance, the gap to Red Bull remains significant, especially in terms of overall race pace. Verstappen’s confidence remains high, but his comment underscores the continued advantage Red Bull holds, despite the efforts of their competitors to close the gap.

Ferrari, with their improved engine and aerodynamic updates, along with Mercedes’ relentless push for more performance from their W14, are undoubtedly pushing harder to challenge the might of Red Bull. However, Verstappen’s assessment suggests that while they’re catching up, they have yet to hit the mark required to consistently challenge for wins.

As the Las Vegas GP approaches, it’ll be interesting to see if Ferrari and Mercedes can take advantage of the unique circuit and conditions, or if Verstappen and Red Bull will continue their unrelenting march towards another victory. Either way, Verstappen’s words remind us that, for now, Red Bull remains the team to beat.

 

• Asked by sports journalist if he could make gains in the race, Max verstappen said: 

“Well, hopefully of course, I can fight with an Alpine. I don’t think at the moment I can fight with Ferrari or Mercedes, they’ve have been too quick. And of course Lewis starting P10, so he will move forward and with McLaren, I don’t know. Both of us were struggling a bit in the long run. But they made some changes, we made some changes, so we have to wait and see how that will go.”

• Asked if the tire Prep in Q3 hampered his run, He said:

“It’s been okay, I mean, I tried two different approaches because you could only do one of them each, because the timing, you know, it’s and not enough minutes to do the normal prep. But the to be honest the grip was the same on both laps. So that was not the problem.”

• Asked to what extent the straight-Line speed issues could be a probelm in the race, max verstappen said:

“Naturally of course the wing is not the most efficient, but hopefully with everyone let’s say DRS closes a little bit better. Because yeah when you trim your DRS naturally you don’t have but you have less of a DRS effect and that’s yeah what is quite painful in qualifying. Naturally of course in a race when you try to pass people, you have less of an effect, so that will be a bit more difficult. But yeah hopefully we just yeah decent on tires, I mean my long runs haven’t been really that good. But we also made some changes to the car and hopefully that will help the tyres out as well.”