Max Verstappen had only been in the lead of the British Grand Prix for six corners when he met the piece of debris that proved to be his downfall. The Dutch driver, who started the race in second, caught and passed Carlos Sainz after forcing a mistake from the Ferrari driver as he approached Becketts corner. But by the time he arrived on the scene at Farm, only a matter of seconds later, two cars ahead had banged wheels and left debris on the road. Ironically, those two cars were Red Bull youngsters Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda, who both hold high hopes of one day becoming Verstappen's teammate and graduating from the AlphaTauri team. That debris, an endplate picked up by Verstappen, became lodged under the floor of his RB18 and robbed the car of a huge 20 per cent of downforce. And by the end of the lap, he was in the pit lane with his hopes of winning the British GP in tatters.
Verstappen all smiles in comical picture
After the race, the team were able to remove the wedged piece of carbon fibre and presented it to Verstappen during the driver's debrief, much to his amusement. A picture of the presentation was then shown to the media, including RacingNews365.com , by Christian Horner as he explained exactly how the debris caused such a problem. "It wedged itself there, almost like a blockage," he said. "So a fairly heavily modified floor for the rest of the race for him as he lost an enormous amount of downforce." Despite the loss of downforce, Verstappen was still able to bring his car home in seventh while teammate Sergio Perez, who at one stage fell to the back of the grid, fought back o finish second. See the picture below...
Most read
