Max Verstappen Says Red Bull Must Be 'Better' In Race Performance Despite Sprint Victory

So far, the United States Grand Prix has delivered nothing but good news for Max Verstappen - storming to pole on his final attempt in sprint qualifying and then delivering a winning performance in the sprint race itself.

But thanks to an opening corner collision between the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris — who are currently first and second in the Drivers' Championship — there is an element of uncertainty around the real competitiveness of Verstappen for Sunday's Grand Prix.

Verstappen heralds 'important' sprint race victory - but not all is done yet

Max Verstappen continued his impressive form with a Sprint Race victory. | Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool

Max Verstappen spoke to F1 TV after claiming the sprint win, admitting it took him a while to get started but that he was glad with the outcome of the race:

"The start was good, then of course there was a Safety Car after the Turn 1 incident. I took a few laps after the SC to have decent pace, so we need to figure out what was going on there, but nevertheless we won the Sprint, which is of course the most important."

A Lap 7 overtake attempt from George Russell ultimately did not see the Briton make the pass, as both cars went wide. Verstappen was able to get back on track first, and from there on looked to have all the pace he needed, claiming all eight points with relative ease.

Even more crucially points were taken out of the deficit between Verstappen and the McLarens, meaning that the 28-year-old has cut down his deficit on title leader Piastri by 49 points over the last four races.

McLaren scored no points at Austin's sprint race thanks to a Lap 1 collision that saw both drivers retire soon after. | Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool

Verstappen conceded that the pace shown over the 19 sprint race laps might have trouble over the full race course if Red Bull do not make the right decisions, saying:

"Looking ahead for tomorrow, I do think we need to be a bit better in race trim to be able to fight the McLarens, because we haven't seen anything of them. We'll have a look [at the setup]. Of course we have some ideas of what we can do, and then hopefully it will just stick a bit better tomorrow."

While the Dutchman might not necessarily be able to claim the top step in tomorrow's race, he is on an impressive run of form that has seen him pick up second place in both Zandvoort and Singapore, and successive victories at the Italian and Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Lando Norris' reveal of repercussions after he and Piastri collided in Baku will be looming over the head of both McLaren drivers after a second coming together in the space of two weeks, but Zak Brown has labelled both of his McLaren drivers as not at fault for the incident and instead accused the rest of the grid of committing 'amateur hour' driving.

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