Red Bull ‘couldn’t have done anything better’ to help Max Verstappen in finale

Red Bull have insisted they couldn’t “have done anything better” to aid Max Verstappen’s F1 title bid in the season finale.

Verstappen narrowly missed out on his fifth consecutive F1 title despite winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Lando Norris’ third-place finish at the Yas Marina Circuit was enough for him to secure his first F1 drivers’ title.

Verstappen controlled Sunday’s race from pole position, running ahead of Oscar Piastri in the first stint.

Norris dropped back into traffic after an early pit stop to cover off an undercut attempt from George Russell.

However, Norris managed to carve his way through the midfield runners who had yet to stop, including Verstappen’s teammate Yuki Tsunoda.

With McLaren’s pace superior to Ferrari and Mercedes, Norris looked under no threat of losing the third place he needed.

Ahead of the race, it was widely speculated that Verstappen would deliberately back up the two McLarens to give Charles Leclerc and Russell a shot at finishing ahead of Norris.

Speaking to F1 TV after the race, Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies believes they were right to “just look at ourselves”.

“It was the most perfect race in terms of how the team and Max have managed it from the start – from the pole of yesterday, starting from a difficult Friday to a dominant pole yesterday, leading pretty much from the beginning to the end, super good tyre management,” he said.

“I don’t think there is anything better than that. We cannot control what’s happening behind. We just look at ourselves, and I don’t think we could have done anything better today.”

Mekies hails “amazing comeback”

Even though Verstappen missed out on the title, Red Bull still had reason to celebrate.

After the Dutch GP in August, Verstappen was 104 points behind Piastri in the standings.

Verstappen then won six of the last nine races to finish just two points behind Norris.

Mekies took over from Christian Horner as team principal ahead of the Belgian GP, which signalled a transformation for the team on track.

“Extremely proud of the team. It’s an amazing comeback, an amazing win,” Mekies reflected.

“A dominant win today in a clean race. It’s not a track where we were expecting to dominate, but that’s what the guys with Max have been able to do, to come up with a super-fast car here. Very, very proud of the amazing job everyone in Milton Keynes has done to give us not only that race but a sensational comeback in the second part of the year.

“Well done to Lando, it was a tough but a great fight. I hope it was great as well for the fans to have this championship still open up until the end of the year, the very last lap of the last race. And that’s it, we’ll try harder next.”