Running an extreme set-up at Silverstone, Max Verstappen may have claimed pole position with the skinny rear wing, but it hurt him when the rain came down in the Grand Prix.
Verstappen put his RB21 on pole position for the British Grand Prix as the reigning World Champion put in a stunning lap to beat the McLaren team-mates by a tenth of a second.
Did Mother Nature rob Max Verstappen of a British GP podium?
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
However, it came to nought on Sunday as the rain bucketed down at the Silverstone circuit.
In changeable conditions, Verstappen led the early laps before he was overtaken by Oscar Piastri and then Lando Norris.
Out on intermediate tyres, Verstappen reported that his tyre were “overheating massively”, but he was told to stay out as the drivers who had swapped to slicks were over seven seconds slower per lap.
As the rain returned, Verstappen went flying off the track and told Red Bull that he had “no rear downforce”. He pitted for fresh inters but struggled with a lack of grip in the rain, the driver fighting to keep his Red Bull on the track.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says Red Bull’s set-up gamble, as they put the World Champion on a Monza-spec rear wing, was based on the weather prediction that there would only be a bit of rain on Sunday, before drying up ahead of the Grand Prix.
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“We trimmed down the car basically to Monza levels of downforce and were able to obviously get a balance that enable Max to get a fantastic pole position that matched Sebastian Vettel’s record and that was based on the forecast that we had that there might be a 20 per cent chance of rain on Sunday morning but thereafter dry conditions,” he told the media, including PlanetF1.com.
“And I don’t think any forecast that we certainly saw showed any chance that the rain was going to be that heavy and that late.
“So, lining up on the grid in the conditions it was, I thought Max had a super start, was able to feel his way around those first few laps. But it was clear very early on that Oscar had quite an advantage pace-wise.
“And then again, as the tyres started to overheat as it was drying out, because it rained on part of the track and not on all of it, you could see where McLaren’s advantage seemed to be on that tyre it was truly evident, and they were miles ahead of the rest of the pack to the point that then the rain started, which was what we were trying to get to.
“The guys that had gone for slicks went too early and the track just wasn’t quite ready for it, but it was clear that rain was coming in.
“I felt we got the crossover time right waiting for that rain. We were able to jump in the pits past Lando, which then got Max back out into position and then thereafter the Safety Car came out.
“And yeah, that’s where the race started to unfold for us, unfortunately, where Oscar obviously did what he did on the brakes on the run up to Stowe.”
Slamming on brakes as he sailed by Piastri under the Safety Car, Verstappen then went spinning as the race got underway and he tried to accelerate.
The four-time World Champion dropped down to P10 and had a tough time recovering to the points, but managed to work his way up to fifth place.
“Once we were in the pack in that dirty air,” Horner continued, “in those wet conditions on the downforce level that we were running, you could see just how hard it was for him.
“But then as the circuit started to dry out, you could see the car starting to find more and more pace and he was able to pick his way through the cars ahead of him to recover to P5 at the end of the race.”
Struggling with the handling of his car with its extreme set-up, Verstappen had several notable moments through Becketts as he had to hold onto the car to avoid sliding.
Horner says that also contributes to his tyre wear.
“I think when you’re sliding like that in those conditions, you can see they were all going through the front left,” he said. “They were basically coming back to a slick tyre.
“And as it came back to a slick, the pace sort of came back. But yeah, it was very, very tricky. I mean, there’s some very fast corners here, medium speed corners.
“If you don’t have the load on the car, it amplifies the complexity.”
The race ended with a McLaren 1-2 as Lando Norris led home Oscar Piastri, while Nico Hulkenberg bagged a career-first podium result on his 239th time of asking. Verstappen was fifth.
Horner reckons had the race been held a few hours later when the track was dry, Verstappen could’ve been on the podium along with the McLaren team-mates.
“Had the race been two hours later,” he continued, “it could have been a different outcome, but it would have been very tough to beat I think the McLaren’s here, but we certainly should have been on the podium.”
Verstappen remains third in the Drivers’ Championship on 165 points, 69 points down on championship leader Piastri.
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