Penalty annoying, but other things bothered Verstappen: 'Didn't manage it'

As soon as the penalties were announced, it became clear that Verstappen's lead in the World Championship would be reduced (barring a timely safety car or other random event). Then, it became a question of how many points Norris was going to gain on him.

"To get back to 6th was alright, but then I couldn't even fight the Mercedes cars in front. I just had no grip. I was just sliding a lot. I couldn't brake. So it was a very tough one," said Verstappen, who hopes his RB20 can be improved in the coming weeks. "We're trying, but in Austin it was more promising. Here again, it was a bit more tough, so it's a bit odd. A few things to look at, and hopefully, of course, in Brazil, we can be more competitive," he added.

What went wrong for Red Bull?

According to Helmut Marko, Red Bull mainly lacked top speed in Mexico. When asked, Verstappen said he was unaware of the speed differences with the competition. But he does say: "It's been not ideal the whole weekend, but we'll see what we do in Brazil."

After the hefty time penalty and his RB20's lack of performance, Verstappen still has a comfortable 47-point lead with four Grands Prix and two sprint races. But Verstappen feels he still needs to improve to make sure of a fourth World Championship. "Still 47 points, so hopefully we can just be a little bit more competitive. In general, quite a poor weekend," he concluded.

This article has been created in collaboration with Ludo van Denderen