Max Verstappen says Red Bull is throwing away two weekends a season by not developing a low-drag rear wing after qualifying fifth for the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Red Bull is losing time to its rivals on the Las Vegas straights after admitting that the rear wing it has at its disposal is not well suited to the high-speed circuit. Verstappen qualified fifth, but was almost half a second behind George Russell, and he says the rear wing approach is proving too expensive for his liking.

“No, we chose not to make one,” said Verstappen. “We don’t have one. So this is already (the case) from 2022. I think we just never thought we would turn it so low (downforce). And then with the budget ceiling you choose your priorities and we have shifted them.

“Would I have liked a lower wing, a wing with lower downforce? Yes, certainly, or at least a different form, a more efficient form. But it’s something we’ll look at. But on the other hand, there is only one year left with these rules. And I don’t know if it makes sense.

“But for me at least it feels a bit like we’re wasting two race weekends in this way. We would certainly have to lose too much on the straights.”

However, the championship leader says it is not just the straight line deficit that is costing Red Bull a lot of money, as he also did not feel the team was making gains over its rivals in the corners.

“In the corners and on the straights (time is lost). We know that with our wing you lose top speed, especially with the DRS Open. It’s a small handicap, we knew that. That’s something we have to deal with on a track like this, a track like Monza.

“But besides that, I always felt like the tires were a bit of a struggle to get them into the right operating window. I think we did our best with what we had in qualifying and P5 is the result.

“We were of course a bit lucky that Lewis didn’t complete a lap, otherwise it would have been P6. I think we really maximized everything we could.”

Verstappen thinks he can stay ahead of Pierre Gasly on Saturday evening, but fears that the other three cars starting ahead of him will be out of reach. With the possibility of winning a fourth Drivers’ Championship on Saturday, Verstappen says the big question mark is McLaren’s form.

“Hopefully I can fight an Alpine of course. I don’t think I can fight with Ferrari or Mercedes at the moment, they are too fast. And of course Lewis starts from P10, so he’s making progress.

“And with McLaren I don’t know. We both struggled a bit in the long run. But they’ve made some changes, we’ve made some changes too, so we have to wait and see how that goes.”

While Verstappen felt he had at least maximized his qualifying result, teammate Sergio Perez dropped out in Q1 and says his struggles with the car distracted him from focusing on maximizing his own performance.

“I think we have a fundamental problem with the car at the moment, which just doesn’t work for me. It’s where the whole brain goes, to try to solve it instead of compromising. Right now we come in on the weekends and we’re just exploring a lot of things, and it’s just hard to make it work.

“It’s clearly not ideal. You want to be up there, especially because I know what I can do. But if you don’t have that grip, then it’s very difficult and you’re prone to a lot of mistakes and so on.”