"Max beating an illegal car while having no brakes" - Fans react to Helmut Marko revealing Max Verstappen's compromised car in 2023 F1 US GP

Red Bull senior Helmut Marko recently revealed that Max Verstappen's car had a major brake issue during the US Grand Prix, which prevented him from pushing and creating a decent gap in the front. The Dutchman was only a few seconds ahead of the pack, something that has rarely been seen in the 2023 F1 season.

Speaking to Sky Sports Germany, Marko explained how the brake pads on Verstappen's car were changed but the new ones were not up to the mark and started deteriorating quickly during the race. He said:

"We had changed the brake pads, and somehow they deteriorated rapidly during the race. That didn't give him the right feeling. Sometimes he braked predominantly with the front of the car, sometimes predominantly with the rear. It made it very difficult for him to drive at the limit, but he worked around those problems masterfully."

As soon as Marko's statement surfaced, numerous F1 fans on social media platforms reacted to it. They praised the Red Bull driver for driving with compromised brakes and still winning the race.

Since Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were disqualified from the race due to excessive plank wear, some even mentioned how Max Verstappen won the race against "illegal" cars.

Here are some of the reactions:

"Max beating an illegal car, whist having no brakes, what a goat."

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Max Verstappen believes sprint races diminish the charm of F1 Grand Prix

Max Verstappen has once again expressed how he does not like sprint races too much. In the post-sprint press conference at the 2023 F1 US GP, he opined that the unpredictability and excitement of the main race get diminished because of sprint races and that fans get to know the race pace of each and every driver and car. He said:

"If I were a fan, I would just be disappointed because then you more or less know about the picture. If nothing crazy happens, you know what's going to happen tomorrow so I find that a bit… it takes away that magic of waking up on a Sunday morning or whatever, Sunday afternoon, and you turn on the TV and you’ve had qualifying but you're not sure which car is going to be quickest in most of the years and yeah, it takes that magic away, I find."

Max Verstappen now has 50 F1 race wins under his belt, which is almost half of what Lewis Hamilton has achieved in his long career. If we look at how dominant the 26-year-old Red Bull driver has been, there are strong chances that he could also hit a century of race wins like Hamilton.