24/10/2023
NEWS STORY
Max Verstappen has shed light on the brake issue that plagued him - and engineer Gianpiero Lambiase - during United States Grand Prix.
In the opening stages of the race the Dutchman appeared to be taking his time in terms of closing on the leaders having been rebuffed by Lewis Hamilton at the opening corner.
He subsequently upped his pace, finally taking the lead on Lap 28.
Just a few laps later he shouted: "Mate, these brakes are **** compared to yesterday!" and subsequently reprimanded Lambiase twice for talking to him whilst he was braking.
Speaking at race end, the Dutchman shed light on the issue.
"It started already with starting in P6," he said, "but the whole race I was struggling a lot with the brakes.
"Around here there are quite a few braking points," he added, "and I didn't really have the same feel as yesterday.
"You don't want to destroy the tyres, but at the same time I was struggling a lot on the braking, so it took quite a while to at least find a bit of a middle way. That definitely made my race a bit tougher out there. You could see it was very close to the end.
"We changed the brakes after yesterday and it was not good," he later told Sky Sports. "I had no good feeling under braking, and I couldn't really get on top of it for the whole race.
"This is something we need to understand. When you are not very confident around here under braking you just don't have a nice feeling under braking and when you come off it.
"I've never really struggled in braking so far in my F1 career but today it definitely was a problem," he admitted. "It can cost you quite a bit of lap time so it was a bit more difficult than I expected."
"As soon as you start managing that issue, it interferes with your tyre temperatures and everything else," agreed team boss, Christian Horner. "I thought he did a very good job to do that.
"It's difficult to predict what it cost in pace," he admitted, "but you could see he didn't enjoy the same advantage of pace, if you like, that he had yesterday."