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Marko on Verstappen's bad start: "Wasn't Max' fault"
- GPblog.com
Helmut Marko was nervous right up to the last minute in the United States Grand Prix. The Red Bull Racing advisor was not sure that Max Verstappen would win the race in Austin. Marko was particularly impressed by his Dutch pupil's tyre management.
"We were shaking the whole race," Marko acknowledged to Sky's German branch . "Unfortunately with the start, it wasn't with us. There was a fault with the clutch bite point, it wasn't Max's fault. As a result, in the first stint, we couldn't drive the pace we wanted." Verstappen had more speed but was stuck behind his World Championship rival.
Tyre management Verstappen
After 11 laps, Verstappen, therefore, decided to go for the undercut at the Circuit of the Americas. "The undercut worked in hindsight, but we saw that we were too slow in the middle stint. Then we made the consideration: two or three stops?" In the end, it became a two-stop effort. "Max was incredible in how he saved those tyres".
Until the last lap, it remained exciting in Texas. "Everybody was shaking. Nobody stood still anymore," said a relieved Marko, who is looking positively ahead to what's to come. "The last three races were [after all] basically all Mercedes circuits."