Helmut Marko pulls back the curtain on Max Verstappen's compromised pace at the 2023 F1 US GP

Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has explained why Max Verstappen was struggling during the 2023 F1 US GP. The three-time world champion was unable to pull a decent gap from the rest of the pack like he has usually done in most of the races this season. Verstappen also sounded quite frustrated and avoided any team communication, particularly during braking zones.

Speaking to Sky Sports Germany, Marko explained how the brake pads on Verstappen's car were changed, but they were not as good as the previous ones. The pads deteriorated quite rapidly, which forced the Dutchman to decelerate more cautiously on turns.

Marko went on to add how Verstappen was braking from the front in some corners while braking from the rear in others, thus struggling a bit during the US GP.

"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," Marko said.

Despite the issues, Verstappen came on top and won the race in Austin, although other drivers were not too far from the top spot. The Red Bull star has now won 50 races in his F1 career, which is nearly half of what Lewis Hamilton has achieved in his long and successful career.

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Max Verstappen on how sprint races take away the magic of F1

Max Verstappen has previously expressed that he is not the biggest fan of sprint races. During the 2023 F1 US GP, he once again explained how the sprint races take away the unpredictability factor of F1 since the fans already knew from the sprint races how teams and drivers would perform in the main race.

"If I were a fan, I would just be disappointed because then you more or less know about the picture," he said in the post-sprint press conference.

"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," Verstappen added.

Despite Verstappen disliking the sprint races, he has been dominating those and winning almost all of them throughout the 2023 F1 season as well.