Max Verstappen’s dreams of winning a fourth consecutive drivers’ world championship in the Las Vegas Grand Prix this weekend were dashed on Friday when Red Bull announced they had brought the incorrect rear wing. In an appearance with Auto Motor und Sport, the car’s senior advisor Helmut Marko stated that Red Bull was losing up to six-tenths of a second on the main straight, Las Vegas Boulevard, which leads to Caesars Palace, due to a packing error. “We don’t have another aft wing, a smaller rear wing, as we notice on our competitors,” Marko told me. “It would be more helpful, for sure.”
He also stated that it was too late for the team to arrange for a more appropriately trimmed rear wing to be flown to Las Vegas before the race on Saturday night. Verstappen leads McLaren’s Norris brothers by 62 points with three races remaining, and he only needs to finish ahead of him in Las Vegas to become the sixth driver to win four world championships.
However, the Dutchman struggled in final practice on Thursday night, finishing 17th in slick conditions on the chilly, dry, and dusty circuit around the streets of ‘Sin City’, where the three-time champion won last year’s race.
Verstappen attempted to make light of the team’s gaffe in packing the incorrect rear wing, blaming his struggle on the slick conditions. “The issue for us is certainly tyre-related as we have little grip and it feels like driving on ice,” he informed me.
“We tried to make the tires work, particularly during one lap and we were quite far off with the pace.” Teammate Sergio Perez finished 19th in the session, trailing Mercedes’ seven-time winner Lewis Hamilton and McLaren’s Norris, who claimed on Wednesday that it is “probably too late” to prevent Verstappen from winning the championship. “There were flashes of speed,” Marko remarked. “We just need to establish consistency. We can improve on single laps, but long-term tire degradation is currently a problem.”