Verstappen names turning point: 'Then I saw we were more competitive'

"It was definitely a very fun one. I had to work for it," explained the Dutchman. "Very hectic, so much going on, but in a good way. That five-second penalty was unfortunate. I didn't mean to push Charles off because we both broke late into turn one but I was, of course, more offline. We both braked late, and I kept sliding. I couldn't keep the car inside the lines, I just kept on sliding, and I couldn't keep the car within the lines so, that was rather unfortunate.

Turning point in Las Vegas GP

Tyre wear was another tricky factor, according to Verstappen. The world champion says he suffered a lot from tyre degradation. That improved after the first stop: "Once we pitted, taking the five-second penalty on the hard, I think we had a lot more pace in the car, so that was definitely very positive. So I could already see that there we were more competitive, but the gap was quite big. With the safety car, we came in again. At that time, I had a damaged front wing, so I had to cope with that as well. I definitely lost a bit of downforce with that, but it was all drivable, so we opted to keep it on to the end, it was fun. We were pushing flat to the end."