Red Bull's Mekies admits Antonelli and Mercedes were 'faster than us' in United States GP

Mekies concedes defeat to Antonelli and Mercedes

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies has admitted that Kimi Antonelli and Mercedes were "faster than us" at the United States Grand Prix in Austin, where Max Verstappen could only manage third place.

Red Bull arrived in Austin on the back of back-to-back wins for Verstappen in Malaysia and Singapore. However, the Dutchman started alongside polesitter Antonelli on the front row and failed to challenge him at the start. Red Bull then opted for a two-stop strategy, while Antonelli and Mercedes stayed on a one-stop. The young Italian was never seriously threatened and won by 13 seconds from Charles Leclerc, who passed Verstappen in the closing stages.

"I think Kimi had more pace than us today. I don't think we can use any excuse of tyres or of strategy. I think Kimi was faster than us today. Fair play, and well done to him," said Mekies.

Strategy and tyre struggles

Mekies said the one-stop and two-stop options were very close in terms of race time, noting that Ferrari ran two stops while McLaren ran one. He added that Red Bull normally enjoys an advantage over competitors on the softer compounds, but this time it struggled to use that advantage.

"We have suffered some fairly high deg with Max on the two sets of soft compounds that we had – and that certainly didn't help materialising the second stop."

A new voice on the radio

Verstappen's race was also notable for a change over the radio. Tom Hart stood in for regular race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase, who is set to move to McLaren. Hart and Lambiase will alternate the role until the end of the season.

"I think he did an excellent job, and you see me smiling because I certainly remember what it is to be on your first race as a race engineer," said Mekies. "And he picked a fairly complicated race to do that, but that was not his choice!"

Mekies praised Hart for a strong debut, saying he had handled the first qualifying and first race in charge well, though acknowledged that the team's relationship with Verstappen would take time to build.

Starts remain a problem

Red Bull's starts are an area Mekies wants to see improve. Both Verstappen and teammate Isack Hadjar, who finished sixth, lost positions on the opening lap due to poor launches and sub-optimal battery deployment.

"As much as we have reduced the gap to competition, and you may remember how bad our starts were at the beginning of the year, we are still not the benchmark."

Mekies said the car's improvement had made the remaining deficit more painful, but expressed confidence the gap would continue to close. He cautioned, however, that Red Bull would not be the benchmark before the end of the season and that closing the gap fully would require significant design and hardware changes, which would only be seen next year.