Max Verstappen admits the deficit Red Bull appears to have to the front is of more concern than any repercussions from his crash in practice at the British GP.
The Dutchman endured a difficult day at Silverstone, stopping in the final minutes of first practice with a gearbox problem before spinning out on the exit of Luffield on just his second lap in the afternoon, after being unable to counter a tank-slapper.
Despite losing a critical 90 minutes of running in conditions more representative to what is expected for the rest of the weekend, last weekend’s winner in Austria remained upbeat, admitting his mistake.
“I think I wanted to be too quick on the Hard tyre, I just lost it,” Verstappen claimed, with the now blue-marked compound being used for the first time this season.
“Unfortunately the way I hit the wall, it ripped off the right rear. At the end of the day, it is not ideal to lose the second session, but the feeling I had [in the car] before that was pretty good.”
The 20-year-old is also confident he can still complete a program which leaves him well-prepared for the race.
“FP3 is still long enough to get [a long run] in, so I’ll get some information from that, and I know I have Daniel [Ricciardo]’s data, so it should be alright,” he stated.
“I feel good always around this track, and I felt confident in FP1 already with the harder tyres. The pace is good, but it seems like we are not fighting for pole. We’ll try again tomorrow.”
On the speed front, it appears another fifth and sixth in qualifying is the likely outcome based on the performance in practice, which saw Ricciardo over eight-tenths off the leading pace in the afternoon.
For Verstappen though, the reason for the gap is clear.
“We are losing a lot of lap time on the straights,” he declared, with that only exaggerated by the number of high-speed corners now taken flat-out.
