20 November 2023 , 14:40
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Red Bull set the stage for Max Verstappen's Las Vegas Grand Prix victory in practice with a deliberate move to give the Dutchman an extra weapon.
Verstappen did indeed win the Sin City event, but only by a few seconds over Charles Leclerc. One of his narrowest winning margins of the year came after a race which was not without its difficulty for the champion.
He took the lead at the first corner but only with a sketchy move on Leclerc which saw both cars go off the track. Verstappen was handed a five-second time penalty for the illegal overtake. And he had already suffered with his tyres so much before his first pit stop that he had been caught and overtaken by the Ferrari, so was well down the order by the time he had served that punishment and changed onto fresh rubber.
It was the second safety car period of the race which swung it back into Red Bull's favour. It allowed Sergio Perez a cheap pit stop which put him right behind leader Leclerc on newer tyres, while Verstappen was able to pit again without losing too much ground to put on his second set of hards of the night.
And that, Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko later explained, was an eventuality the team had been planning for all weekend. "We took a bit of a risk with this," he explained. "We deliberately did not use those hard tyres in practice, as we wanted to save two sets for the race. Fortunately, unlike the previous races, this has now worked well. We went quite fast then.
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"This time both cars were clearly better than Ferrari on the hard tyre. Leclerc's tyres were of course five laps older after that safety car phase, although graining started earlier for him than for us. Once Max was able to get out of the DRS, he finished the race calmly. At that moment we knew that we would drive home the victory."
Marko also gave his verdict on the early stages of the race in which he admitted that his team was second-best, and also reflected on Verstappen's penalty which he said was an example of how the Dutchman chooses to go about his work on track. He added: "Max had more tyre wear on medium tyres than we had expected. Ferrari was better on that tyre.
"We then of course, also received a five-second time penalty and you noticed via the on-board radio that Max was 'on fire'. On the hard tyre, he then showed what was possible, how he can read races nowadays and how aggressive but fair he can race."
As Marko alluded to, Verstappen wasn't too pleased with his penalty at the time and sent a sarcastic radio message in which he gave his "regards" to the stewards. But he later admitted it was a fair decision, telling reporters: "At the time, also from adrenaline, I was not happy with the decision, but looking back at it that was probably the right call."