Verstappen offers his view on the race-deciding start at Las Vegas

On the back of his dominant victory at last Saturday’s Las Vegas Grand Prix, reigning champion Max Verstappen explained how difficult it was to execute an optimal start into Turn 1.

Having secured second place on the grid, Max Verstappen picked off Norris into Turn 1 on the opening lap as the McLaren driver slightly outbraked himself.

Thereafter, the Dutchman managed the race superbly. He absorbed all the pressure Russell threw at him in the opening stages of the race, and managed to build up a bit of a margin from the chasing pack.

Although Red Bull left Verstappen out for longer than his rival during the first stint, the Dutchman had slightly fresher tyres for the second stint which allowed him to escape from the duo of Russell and Norris again.

While Verstappen cruised to his sixth Grand Prix win of the season at Las Vegas, his team-mate Yuki Tsunoda endured another tough race.

The Japanese driver opted to start from the pit lane after his difficult qualifying session. He pitted early to switch from the mediums to the hard tyre, but had to stop a second time and that dropped him back down the order.

Verstappen executed a race-deciding manoeuvre on Norris at the start when the Briton ran a bit wide into Turn 1 which allowed him to take over the lead.

“I mean, that’s what you should do to cover off the inside. But I think it’s very easy to get caught out with where you have to brake also, because normally in the start, you leave the grid and then you look in the mirror.

“But here, it’s almost like you don’t have a lot of time to look in the mirror because you immediately have to brake again. And it’s quite slippery anyway. So yeah, I guess that’s what happened.

Verstappen looked vulnerable in the opening stages of the race as Mercedes driver George Russell tried to mount an attack against the Dutchman. The reigning champion explained after the race that he simply wanted to find out the optimum pace without overstressing Pirelli’s medium tyres which had looked prone to graining across the practice sessions.

“I mean, of course like in practice, not really knowing what the tyres were going to do. Even in the race, I think you could see everyone just trying to find a rhythm, seeing how much you could push, especially in the first stint because you’re on the more fragile tyre.

“And yeah, it worked really well. I mean, normally the race is always a tough one for us. We are normally not that great on tyres. But today it seemed like we had that a bit more under control and I could push a little bit more. And that just unlocked a bit more pace.

“I could stay out a bit longer and split, basically, the race in half. And yeah, that definitely helped a lot. The car was working pretty well, much more to my liking.

“And yeah, then it was, at the end, quite a decent gap. But yeah, it was just every lap feeling comfortable and not taking too much out of the tyre,” concluded Verstappen.