Verstappen puts his finger on the problem: 'That was a bit painful'

Lack of power for Verstappen

Red Bull has achieved good results at Interlagos before and Max himself was also successful in Brazil. In the 2021 edition, Hamilton was all-conquering and the sun on Sunday was no match for Mercedes. At the press conference after the race, Verstappen discusses this deficit.

"Around here there are not that many corners but high degradation and, like I explained before, they took a new engine and there is just a bit more performance in that and we don’t have that. I had to get my time somewhere to try and match Lewis and that was of course through the middle sector where the corners are, mainly, and that means that I had to use my tyres a bit more," Verstappen explained.

Wear and tear in Brazil

"At one point I just ran out of tyres to try and defend but that’s how it goes. I said before, slowly that performance delta will become smaller in terms of straightline speed so I’m not too worried about that," he added. 

"I don’t really think we did anything wrong. It was just a bit too painful for us on the straights and then try to recover that in the middle sector with basically how the track layout is and the hot conditions was a bit too difficult for us this weekend," the Red Bull driver concludes.