Max Verstappen believes that Aston Martin Red Bull Racing have a “good” package for the second half of the season and says that there were positives in a British Grand Prix weekend that ended in retirement.
Verstappen held fifth place in the closing stages of Sunday’s race before a brake-by-wire and gearbox failure saw him cede his points. The Dutchman revealed post-race that he had been struggling with the brake-by-wire system for the duration of the race and had hoped that he would be able to finish the race.
Although he said that a mechanical error was “not a nice way” to end Formula 1‘s first ever triple-header, Verstappen reflected on his second place at Circuit Paul Ricard and a first victory of the season at the team’s home race in Austria as positives.
“It’s not a nice way to finish the triple header but luckily last week was good and the two weeks before were also positive,” he said.
“That’s racing sometimes. I’ve had it many times before and for sure it will happen also in the future, but of course I wish I would have finished fifth or at least collected some points. Because now we have nothing.
“It was quite weird, because on lap one I had a brake-by-wire issue, the pedal fell to the floor in Turn 3 but then it recovered and everything was going fine after that. Then after the second safety car I braked for Turn 16 and the pedal literally went to the floor, the rear brakes locked up and I spun off the track.
“We will now start to investigate what actually happened.”
The 20-year-old conceded that Red Bull were “too slow” in terms of straightline speed to compete with Scuderia Ferrari and Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport at a track that requires the driver to be on full throttle for around 70% of the lap in a race situation.
Despite this, Verstappen says that Red Bull have a “good car” heading towards the next double-header of Germany and Hungary – the latter a track that suits the team’s downforce-heavy package – before the series’ summer break.
“Even without the brake issue we were just too slow on the straights to do anything,” Verstappen added.
“You could see it even with Daniel [Ricciardo, his Red Bull team-mate] when he was attacking [Valtteri] Bottas; when we open the DRS we are the same speed as them without DRS, so you just cannot do anything.
“I think so far this season I have actually been okay with the reliability of our car, so it’s just a shame that it happened here. When you know you have a difficult weekend, you of course want to take some points back home.
“But one positive aspect of the weekend is that I think we actually have a good car.”
After taking no points from the Silverstone International Circuit, Verstappen returns to sixth in the Drivers’ Championship behind Bottas on 93 points, 78 points behind championship leader Sebastian Vettel.
