Mekies says Red Bull still does not fully understand its radio problems

Red Bull still does not fully understand why its team-radio problems keep recurring, team principal Laurent Mekies said after the United States Grand Prix. Both Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar encountered communication trouble in Austin. Mekies also acknowledged that rival teams were doing better, while Red Bull had struggled more than it wanted.

The failures did not all run in the same direction. In Singapore, Red Bull could not hear Verstappen, so engineer Gianpiero Lambiase had to use coded communication: Verstappen stayed silent when he accepted a strategy and tried to speak when he wanted to delay a pit stop. In Austin, Verstappen had the opposite problem and could not properly hear stand-in engineer Tom Hart. Hadjar also experienced radio dropouts.

After the race, Verstappen said the radio problems had occurred repeatedly that season, though he could not say how often, and called them frustrating. Hadjar said he had missed pit instructions and left the pits with the wrong engine mapping. On the hard tyre, he said, he was losing a second per lap. Verstappen finished third in Austin.