Max Verstappen says Red Bull may need to rethink its strategy of saving money in the budget cap by not designing and producing a special low-downforce rear wing.
The team was caught short in Las Vegas with a significant top speed deficit, with mechanics forced to cut and trim the wing - damaging the DRS effect.
"We chose not to make one, so we simply don’t have one," Verstappen said. "That has been the case since 2022. I think we just never thought we would run with so little downforce.
"With the budget cap, you have to make choices."
However, he wonders if Red Bull made the right design choice this time. "We will look at it, but on the other hand there is only one year left with these rules, so I don’t know if it’s worth it. It’s tricky.
"It still feels a bit like we’re throwing away two weekends," he said, referring to the races in Las Vegas and Monza. "We had to saw off that DRS flap really hard, then you have less DRS effect," he rued.
The good news for Verstappen is that he qualified P5, he is at least ahead of his title rival Lando Norris - and the McLaren driver needs to close the points gap on Saturday or Verstappen will be world champion.
"It’s nice that we’re ahead of Lando, but I’d still rather be higher up," he said. "We have to see how we handle the tyres in the race and how fast we are.
"I’d prefer to be champion as soon as possible, but I’m not really thinking about that."
Team advisor Dr Helmut Marko told De Telegraaf newspaper: "I think Max will win the title here, because McLaren doesn’t seem fast enough."
Meanwhile, Marko admitted that, like most other teams, Red Bull also had to make changes to the ’skid block’ following the latest FIA technical directive.