100 points of downforce. That’s a lot. Max Verstappen spoke about the damage done to his car when he went off the track on a damp track during Q1 of Qualifying for the British Grand Prix at Copse.
Max’s mistake came shortly after fitting the Soft compound dry tyres. The asphalt, at least in some parts of the track, was still damp and the Dutchman was caught at Copse, ending up in the gravel escape road.
At that point, at that specific moment, he seriously damaged the bottom of his single-seater, thus compromising its performance for the continuation of the official tests held at Silverstone.
“Initially it was 100 points of downforce lost. And that was a lot. Then we managed to reduce that number, but it was still significant.”
To give an idea of the problems Verstappen had, it is calculated that 10 points of downforce lost are equivalent to more or less a tenth of a second. 100 points, it goes without saying, become a second.
“That exit in Q1 was really super unlucky,” continued the three-time reigning world champion. “I went out at Turn 7 but it had already started raining at that point. So I knew that with the guys in front of me they were without rain tyres.”
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
“I knew that in Q1 we needed to do at least one flying lap on dry tyres, because you never know, if the rain started to fall again, the session would have ended there and we couldn’t afford that. Of course I tried to do that lap. I slowed down at that point because I could see on my helmet visor that it was starting to rain, but the car slid and I had to try to avoid hitting it in the wall, ending up off the racing line.”
“At that point I ended up in the gravel run-off area and the floor was destroyed. I lost quite a few pieces of the car, although the team did a good job in trying to recover some parts and optimise the balance between the front and rear. But the exit ruined my qualifying.”
“I’m happy to have finished in Q3 anyway, given the damage we had. To be in fourth position is definitely a positive surprise.”
The team tried to repair as much damage as possible during qualifying. But this often changed the balance of the RB20 number 1.
“The guys kept working on the floor to fix it, but the balance, in this way, changed lap after lap. For my part, I changed something on the steering wheel lap after lap to find a better compromise. Probably, in some places, we overdid it to compensate, but in Q3 I still did a good lap.”
“I tried to push as hard as I could, to exploit the track whenever I could, because obviously at high speeds there was no load and in some corners I was going slower than in free practice. But yes, we really did the best we could with the damage we had.”
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