Max Verstappen admits his Red Bull team need to find more pace as they seek to beat Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes to the Formula 1 title.

Verstappen, 24, said: “We know we still have a bit of work to do.

“I’m not concerned because there is nothing we can do about it. But we have to find a bit more performance.”

Verstappen has led the championship for much of the season but has not won or qualified fastest since the Dutch Grand Prix at the beginning of September – four races ago.

By contrast, a Mercedes has been on pole for two of the last three races and the team have won the last two, with Hamilton victorious in Russia and team-mate Valtteri Bottas last time out in Turkey.

Across all metrics, there is a clear trend showing Mercedes have begun to eke out a small performance advantage since they introduced an update package to their car at the British Grand Prix in July.

Verstappen said: “We learned a lot in Turkey and we try to do better with our package. We have to focus on ourselves.”

The US Grand Prix is held at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, where Hamilton has had considerable success in recent years, winning five of the eight races at the track, which he counts as one of his favourites.

But the following race in Mexico is expected to favour Red Bull – and the title race remains finely poised.

Hamilton said: “It is important to win every race somehow, or maximise our points. That is our goal over the next six races.

“It is going to be incredibly difficult. There will be moments when we can edge them out. I don’t like to assume Mexico is not going to be strong, but they are usually very strong in Mexico.

“A lot can happen in six races. We just take one race at a time and give it everything we’ve got.”

Fan survey results

Verstappen emerged as the favourite driver among fans in a survey conducted for F1 by the statistic company Nielsen.

In a survey of 167,000 people hosted by the specialist publishing company Motorsport Network, a third of fans placed him in their top three drivers and 14.4% naming him favourite.

Hamilton, who was favourite in the last F1 survey conducted in 2017, has slipped to third place behind McLaren’s Lando Norris, who was close behind Verstappen on 13.7%.

Norris was comfortably the most popular driver in the 16-24 age group, of which more than 25% named him as favourite.

Hamilton was most popular among the over 45s.

Behind the top three, McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo was fourth, ahead of four-time champion Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and two-time champion Fernando Alonso.

A big weekend for F1

This weekend’s US Grand Prix marks a major development within F1 since the start of the pandemic.

It is the first long-haul race to be held since the start of the 2020 season was abandoned before a car had hit the track in Melbourne, Australia.

And there is a significant change to the sport’s Covid protocols, which have been aimed at limiting transmission of the disease.

Under these, each team is designated as its own bubble, and media have been banned from entering their headquarters in the paddock.

But at this race, for the first time since the 2020 season resumed after a four-month delay, media are allowed to enter teams’ buildings, under a series of guidelines, including that journalists have to be invited, can stay only for 15 minutes, and only three can be inside at a time.

All news conferences will continue to be held virtually.

And underlining the US GP’s status as one of the key races on the calendar, 120,000 fans are expected at COTA on Friday and Saturday, and 140,000 for the race.

Among the celebrities in attendance will be tennis star Serena Williams, NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal, golfer Rory McIlroy and film star William Fichtner.