Red Bull has worked hard to find more speed in their car. The high Austin temperatures of 30 ° C are working in their favor.
The 30 ° C temperature in Austin is warmer than ever for the race, which always takes place in October or November. Combining this with a biting track grinds the tires so hard that it looks like the teams will need two pit stops to survive the race.
Mercedes usually struggles more than Red Bull when the ambient temperature rises. “Part of that is probably tire overheating, which affects everyone, but it was a real challenge,” said top Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton.
“We just struggled to keep up with these guys …”
Lewis Hamilton will go all out to beat the Red Bull’s after Max Verstappen overtook him at #USGP pic.twitter.com/mxz8g4a9Uw
– Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) October 24, 2021
Red Bull went to great lengths to find more speed. Especially after the Turkish GP, where Max Verstappen overtook Mercedes’ Valterri Bottas.
It was a bit of a wake-up call for the team as the race was held in wet conditions, which is where the Dutchman excels. The Dutchman said: “In Turkey we weren’t entirely happy with the performance, but it’s a completely different track.”
“But the tires are also the things that hit the ground and if you find a little more they can make a difference. It was an unexpected result. “
He also said, “Maybe a little bit surprised, but you can see that it swings a bit through the season. I’m happy to see that it still does [but] the race will be a different story. “
Also read: Max Verstappen reacts angrily after reporter suggests the possibility of a first-round accident with Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes did not live up to expectations; Red Bull is falling back
The soft tires are pretty useless to a long-term reformulated Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz, who will start in fifth place after a Ferrari failure on soft tires.
Sainz jokingly repeated that he would benefit from his initial hold. “For about 10 meters. After a corner you want to be on the medium. ”Even the medium tires have a hard time at COTA due to the bumps and demanding corners.
Hardly anybody has ever used the hard tire – but only because it is supposed to play a strong role in the race. Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff said the team has not yet figured out why it lost pace from Friday to Saturday.
However, they admitted that they had not lived up to expectations. The Austrian also threw in another topic – the severe bumps on the tracks. Before qualifying, Red Bull had to repair the Verstappen rear wing caused by the bumps.
Wolff said Mercedes also needed to make adjustments that would have affected performance. “The car had bottomed out pretty badly and that breaks the car and we’ve taken some mitigating steps to make it less difficult to massacre and survive the race.”
“Definitely a compromise to get fast on the track but maybe a necessity to get to the finish line,” he added.
Also read: Lewis Hamilton gives in to Red Bull’s superiority at COTA
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