Max Verstappen revealed concerns over the state of his spine as he unleashed a scathing criticism of the "out of control" bumpy track surface at Circuit of The Americas. The four-time world champion arrives in Austin for Sunday's United States Grand Prix after claiming his first two victories of the season in back-to-back races. Speaking to the media on Thursday, Verstappen was unexpectedly passionate over the state of the circuit, which is generally considered as one of the most popular among the drivers on the F1 calendar.
"You see also the track state from what I saw in WEC (World Endurance Championship), it was extremely badly bumpy," Verstappen said. "I'm not really looking forward to that to be honest, for your spine. I was joking about that in the last race but it's not really a joke to be honest because we mentioned this already for years that it's actually getting a bit out of control.
"I'm sure it's going to be quite tough to find the right compromises around this track in places where it's just extremely bumpy. I don't know how our car is going to respond to that." Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player The Red Bull driver appeared to be urging the event organisers to place greater emphasis on improving the surface for the event in future. "Of course, you can use the excuse that the soil is the problem, but then you should have known that you need to make sure that you reinforce it more," Verstappen continued.
It's one of the best layouts ever and it's one of the venues, best cities to be at. But for me, the bumps that we have are unacceptable. "Over time, they've been grinding a little bit here and there, but it's just putting a plaster on the big problem - that's just what's coming underneath.
"That's what you need to actually tackle in the first place. Of course, it means you need to really fully open up the track. That costs a lot of money and time, but honestly, that's the only way to get rid of it because these bumps are not natural and they are out of control." Verstappen then explained that medical checks had shown that "the bottom end" of his spine "doesn't look that great".
The 29-year-old said: "That I think sometimes people don't really understand that because I can tell you from the checks that I've done from my spine, the bottom end doesn't look that great, the spine. "I know that's part of racing. I know that can be part of sport, but it's of course also further damage from the cars that we had the last few years.
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