Las Vegas Grand Prix: nightmare for Max Verstappen’s hopes as Red Bull bring wrong wing
The championship leader’s team admits to packing incorrect part, with no time to arrange for a more appropriate rear piece to be flown out
Max Verstappen’s hopes of clinching a fourth consecutive drivers’ world championship at the Las Vegas Grand Prix this weekend took a dent on Friday when Red Bull revealed they brought the wrong rear wing.
In an interview with Auto Motor und Sport, the team’s senior adviser Helmut Marko said Red Bull were losing up to six-tenths of a second on the main straight, the Las Vegas Boulevard leading to Caesars Palace, after a packing blunder.
“We don’t have another rear wing, a smaller rear wing, as we see on our competitors,” said Marko. “It would be more helpful, for sure.”
He added that it was too late for the team to arrange for a more appropriate trimmed rear wing to be flown out to Las Vegas before the race on Saturday night.
Verstappen leads McLaren’s Lando Norris by 62 points with three races remaining and needs simply to finish ahead of him in Las Vegas to become the sixth man to win four world championships.
The Dutchman, however, struggled in second practice on Thursday night, finishing 17th in slippery conditions on the cold, dry and dusty circuit around the streets of “Sin City” where the three-time champion won last year’s race.
