Mekies: Red Bull could not match Antonelli's pace in Austin

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies said after the United States Grand Prix in Austin that his team could not blame tyres or strategy for failing to match Kimi Antonelli's pace. Antonelli had more pace than Red Bull, Mekies said, and won for Mercedes by 13 seconds from Charles Leclerc. Max Verstappen finished third.

Verstappen started on the front row beside polesitter Antonelli but failed to challenge him at the start. Red Bull chose a two-stop strategy, while Mercedes kept Antonelli to one stop. Mekies said the one- and two-stop approaches were close in overall race time.

Mekies also said Red Bull struggled to use its usual advantage on the softer compounds. Verstappen suffered fairly high degradation on both sets of soft tyres, he said.

Mekies said Red Bull had reduced its deficit in race starts but was still not the benchmark there. Significant design and hardware changes needed to reach that level, he said, would come only in 2027.