Red Bull consultant Helmut Marko also explained that Max Verstappen's abrupt pit stop when he started to lose performance on the Silverstone track wiped out his medium tires - which, contrary to what the Dutchman thought, were perfect
Max Verstappen narrowly avoided a clean break at the British Grand Prix last Sunday. After getting his floorboard damaged by debris from the AlphaTauri car, the Dutchman lost a lot of performance and Red Bull even considered taking him out of the race to save the engine.
The revelation was made by the Austrian team's consultant Helmut Marko. Verstappen even took the lead on a mistake by Carlos Sainz after the second start at Silverstone, but the floor problem left the World Championship leader vulnerable to rivals, and he had to fight hard to finish at least seventh, masking six points.
It all started when the Dutchman strangely began to lose performance when he was already leading and thought it was because of a flat tire. Max immediately went into the pits, and Marko pointed out that it was a mistake: his abrupt braking to avoid going over the speed limit in the pit-lane had ruined his medium tires - which, after all, were perfect.
"Max's first reaction was 'I can't drive the car anymore. Naturally, the first thing you imagine is a flat tire," said the Austrian. "Verstappen went into the pit-lane so fast and so angry that he ended up with the medium tires, That was a mistake he made, but it was understandable," he added.
The team informed Verstappen that there were no problems, but still, Verstappen complained over the radio that he could not drive, probably due to some breakage. It wasn't until the end that they discovered the reason: a piece of Yuki Tusnoda's rear wing that, stuck to the Venturi ducts in the floorboard, caused the Dutchman to lose about 20 percent downforce. "That, in terms of lap time, is 1s5 to 2s," he explained.
The hard tires that Verstappen put on at the stop also hurt the performance of the RB18 #1. It was at this point that Red Bull began to consider the possibility of taking the World Cup leader out of the race in England. "We thought about bringing Verstappen into the pits to save the engine. But while he was at least in the points, we postponed the decision."
"Fortunately, when we switched to the soft tire, the car was better," Marko continued, referring to the stop that much of the grid made on Esteban Ocon's safety-car in the latter part of the race. "Thank God we still had that tire! We moved up positions and fought with Mick Schumacher at the end of the race. In the end, it was right to stay on the track as long as we were in the points and without any technical problems," concluded the consultant.