Max Verstappen sets stark Mexico City GP requirement in Red Bull setback

Convinced he won’t be making up positions on the run down to Turn 1 in Mexico. Max Verstappen says he needs the drivers ahead of him to retire to make any gains, such is his RB21’s pace.

Verstappen will line up fifth at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez on Sunday, with his 1:16.070 in qualifying almost half a second slower than pole-sitter Lando Norris’ P1 time.

Can Max Verstappen reach the podium in Mexico?

⦁ Max Verstappen concedes Turn 1 ‘doesn’t matter’ as his pace is ‘weak’
⦁ Reigning World Champion has no idea why Red Bull have no place
⦁ Red Bull team principal declares Norris is ‘probably out of reach’

Although Verstappen has been the inform driver over the last four race weekends, scoring 101 of the maximum 108 points, his momentum was slowed on Saturday when he qualified behind one McLaren driver but ahead of the other.

The up side is the driver he is behind is the one who is second in the standings, Norris, who he trails by 26. The one he is ahead of, Oscar Piastri, is 40 points up on Verstappen but three places behind on the grid.

But whether the reigning World Champion can take advantage of that remains to be seen.

Verstappen fears his RB21’s pace is so poor this weekend that he won’t even be able to use the slipstream on the 800m run down to Turn 1 to make gains on the drivers ahead.

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“I have no pace, so it doesn’t matter what I do in Turn 1, even if I jump two cars, they will get me in the race,” he told PlanetF1.com and other media outlets after qualifying.

“So I just need to stay out of trouble and just do my own race, because every lap that I did, even in the long run, has been weak compared to the cars ahead of me.

“So just try to follow, see what we can do.

“I will figure that out myself tomorrow. You know, if you have an opportunity, you go for it, but, yeah, I’m more worried just about our pure pace. That is just not being good this weekend.”

Pointed out to him the many overtakes at Turn 1 on the opening lap of the Mexico City Grand Prix in the past, Verstappen quipped back: “You don’t need to tell me that, I’m experienced enough to know what I have to do and whatnot.”

Such was his disappointment with the RB21’s pace, the reigning World Champion told Sky Sports that his best option for making up positions is for those ahead of him to retire from the grand prix.

“There is no real recovery drive when you have no pace,” he lamented. “I mean, I need people to retire in front of me to go ahead.

“So yeah, every lap that I did this weekend has not been good, short run, long run, it never felt in the window, and that is not going to suddenly change tomorrow for the better.”

Asked to explain why it had been such a difficult qualifying for Red Bull, Verstappen replied: “If we would know, we would change it. And unfortunately, we don’t know.

“We’ve tried so many things, and it’s just not been good. So yeah, it’s not the lack of trying, it’s just not finding it.

“And yeah, we went into qualifying, trying something again, and I think we didn’t get it quite right in some corners where it made it maybe, well, in some places maybe a bit better, but then in some other areas, more difficult. And that didn’t allow me then push. I knew already from Q1 the first run that was not going to be it.”

Red Bull team boss shares Max Verstappen’s concerns

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies agrees with Verstappen that it won’t be an easy grand prix, not only because of Red Bull’s pace, but also that of pole-sitter Norris.

The Briton was the standout driver in Friday’s practices when it came to race pace.

Red Bull, Mekies acknowledges, hasn’t been able to find the sweet spot with the RB21 and have been caught out short as a result.

“It’s fair to say that we didn’t quite manage to put the car in a sweet spot this weekend so far,” Mekies told F1TV. “Certainly with Max, you probably heard him being very vocal since yesterday and we tried many, many things but we couldn’t quite find a way to give him a car he could push with.

“With the sort of level of the competition, that’s the price you pay straight away as soon as you fall out of your window. It’s part of the game – we learn, and it’s still a very long race tomorrow.

“A lot of our attention overnight went into trying to see if we could improve the race pace. Whether or not this is what has exposed us a bit more in the short run is difficult to say right now. I think the real answer is after the race.

“Lando looks really, really fast. The Ferrari as well looks very fast this weekend, but it’s still a very long race.

“It’s a hot race, everybody’s at their limit with the car cooling, with the brake cooling, so a lot of things can still happen. You have all our competitors around us, so I’m sure it won’t be a boring race.”

Verstappen faces a stiff challenge to win the title as he needs to outscore Piastri by an average of eight points per race to beat the Australian to the title, and 5.2 points more than Norris. But he’s been doing that comfortably the last four races, up by an average of 16 against Piastri and 11 against Norris.

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Additional reporting by Elizabeth Blackstock

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