F1: Extent of Verstappen damage at Silverstone revealed

Max Verstappen was looking in great shape to continue his fine run of form – five wins in six races – in the early stages of the British Grand Prix, but after hitting a piece of debris that caused significant damage to his Red Bull, it became a race of “damage limitation” as he wound up P7.

“The first few laps I think were very good,” said Verstappen. “We had very good pace and I was basically just reeling in Carlos and… then he made a mistake so I got into the lead.

“Then a few corners later, it was like a piece of carbon on the track in the kink of Turn 5 and at the time, I realized it was there, I could not drastically move left or right, so I tried to hit it head on.

“Normally, it just evaporates or explodes, but this time it got into the floor and it completely destroyed the whole left-hand side underneath, so from there onwards I was losing a lot of time.

“The car was really undriveable, so I tried to the best I could. And I actually think because of the Safety Car, we gained a few spots, so yes, quite a lot of damage limitation.”

He added: “I tried everything I could with the car I had. It’s of course not what I want but sometimes you have those races which just become a bit unlucky.”

How @Max33Verstappen managed to finish P7 with this piece of debris lodged in his car, we’ll never know 👏👏👏#BritishGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/bbeYLBZUL2

— Formula 1 (@F1) July 5, 2022