Russell’s theory: Does Red Bull's aero map explain Verstappen’s Austin F1 pace?

Saturday in Austin turned out to be an even better day than expected for Max Verstappen's championship hopes. The Dutchman saw both McLarens drop out of the sprint, scored eight points himself, and later that day secured pole position for the grand prix.  

Despite that, Verstappen and Red Bull were not entirely satisfied with the car’s balance during the sprint. The reigning world champion said the ride – especially at the rear – didn’t feel good, while senior advisor Helmut Marko added that Red Bull's tyre degradation was higher than expected. 

The team believes these issues were mainly linked to the car's set-up. Verstappen explained during the post-sprint press conference that, unlike earlier in the season, the team no longer feels lost but still needed to tweak certain details after parc ferme opened. Those changes have since been made, and Marko expects Sunday’s race pace to be stronger than during the sprint. 

Red Bull able to extract potential with low ride height in qualifying? 

Mercedes driver George Russell, however, points to another factor in Red Bull’s Austin pace. In his view, the gap between Red Bull’s qualifying speed and its sprint race performance at the Circuit of the Americas mainly stems from the car’s characteristics instead of set-up. 

“Max was obviously super quick. It's not the first time we've seen them being super strong in qualifying on high-speed tracks. They were on pole in Silverstone, on pole in Suzuka, and on pole here. They seem to have really good downforce when the car is really low to the ground, which is what you have in the high-speed corners.” 

Russell explained that this is especially true during qualifying, when the cars are pushed to their limits and cornering speeds are at their peak. It’s when the ground-effect suction is at its strongest, pulling the car close to the asphalt. 

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, George Russell, Mercedes

Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images

During the shorter of two races this weekend, Russell was able to stay much closer to Verstappen and even attempted an opportunistic overtake. Asked by Autosport if that surprised him given Red Bull’s advantage in qualifying, Russell clarified his theory: 

“No, not really, because I think their aero map is very good when the car is very low to the ground. And you have that in the very high-speed corners. For us, it's the opposite, we're very bad in these conditions,” the Mercedes driver said. “In the race, you're going through the high-speed corners maybe 20 kilometres or so slower. That means the car is higher, so we're not dropping off the cliff and everything converges.” 

Russell suggested that Red Bull’s key strength at COTA becomes less effective in race conditions. With everything on the limit and the car being pushed low to the ground, Red Bull can exploit the RB21’s high-speed performance, whereas Mercedes can’t match that peak ground effect. 

But over a race distance, where constantly repeating qualifying laps would wear down skid blocks and tyres excessively, the advantage narrows – explaining why Mercedes looked relatively stronger in the sprint than during both qualifying sessions. 

Mercedes in contention for US GP podium? 

With that in mind, Russell hopes to play a role in Sunday’s fight up front, starting from fourth on the grid. “I hope we can fight for the podium. There are obviously a lot of different teams around us. Oscar is out of position, and I expect him to be fast, so he needs to get around Turn 1 first.” 

At McLaren, the lack of data from the sprint race was seen as a disadvantage, but Russell downplayed that. With two safety cars, the Briton argued that nobody got a proper long-run reference.  

“We finished two and a half seconds in front of a Williams. We would have expected more performance than that, and we haven't seen what McLaren is capable of. We always know that they're pretty special in those hot conditions. During the sprint race, what did we do, maybe 10 or 11 laps. Tomorrow we've got 55 laps to do,” Russell said, making clear that the main race will be a step into the unknown for everyone – not just McLaren.