Laurent Mekies: Max's race can be called a masterclass.

      After the finish of the race in Las Vegas, Laurent Mekies, head of Red Bull Racing, praised the achievement of Max Verstappen and the whole team, calling the four-time world champion’s performance “a masterclass.”

      Laurent Mekies: “Max’s race in Las Vegas can be called another masterclass in his execution! To be honest, I believe the team also worked almost perfectly, so we have reason to be proud. The car allowed us to run a high pace, although this weekend no one had the chance to properly prepare for the Grand Prix, as various kinds of issues arose during all three practice sessions.

      We also managed to find a pretty good approach to the tyres, and Max had no trouble managing their wear. Perhaps it was even noticeable from the outside that at certain stages of the race he could hold the pace back somewhat, but when he needed to push, he always had speed in reserve.

      A year ago on this track we had big difficulties, but this weekend overall is quite different from all the other rounds of the season — both because of the low temperatures and the peculiarities of the circuit layout. However, Max and the team did a great job.”

      Red Bull decided that alongside Verstappen his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase would join him on the podium and receive the team’s trophy, and on the podium they cheerfully sprayed each other with champagne. And when at the start Max passed Lando Norris, despite the McLaren driver acting very aggressively to stop him through, Gianpiero, whom everyone in the paddock calls “GP,” praised his driver over the radio.

      “It’s practically impossible to beat Max in maneuvers of that kind,” Mekies continued. “In such situations he always acts as he should, and we saw another example of that. When you analyse such overtakes after the finish, it always seems that it’s not such a difficult manoeuvre, but during the race there were other important moments that determined the outcome. But the team always acted perfectly, and I’m very glad that at the podium ceremony Max and ‘GP’ represented Red Bull Racing together.

      For the remaining two rounds of the season we intend to prepare for each separately and every weekend we want to score as many points as possible. In Las Vegas we managed to win the race, and a win is always a win. Now we need to regroup and try to deliver the same result in Qatar. As for the championship situation, we are trying not to think about it for now, because the main thing is to score as many points as possible.”