Red Bull's Max Verstappen has shed more light on the immediate aftermath of his crash at Silverstone, in which the Dutchman suffered a 51G impact with the barriers following contact between himself and title rival Lewis Hamilton. Verstappen later said that it marked the lowest point of his season , and has now given more details about the days immediately following the crash as he recovered at home after a trip to a hospital near the circuit. Speaking in a video for personal sponsor CarNext , Verstappen was asked whether the Silverstone incident had changed the complexion of the title fight for him. "No, it didn't change anything for the championship, or the way I was racing or whatever," he said. "But it was definitely not a nice impact. Especially the days after, [I] really felt bad, like sore everywhere. "You don't want to have these things happening too many times. But I also knew that was a big points hit. I knew it potentially might be a big difference at the end of the season. "But I was like, 'Oh well, it doesn't matter', we just go again, we keep on pushing, we keep trying, and that's what we did. "But then we went to Hungary, we had another shunt, but that is racing at the end of the day, you just can't control these things!"
Getting back to racing
Taking a few days to rest and recuperate, Verstappen went on to explain that he decided to take part in an online sim race at home in order to make sure that his coordination and motor skills had fully recovered before heading to the Hungarian Grand Prix. "I did do a sim race in between," he commented. "It was just because they told me for a few days I was not allowed to be on screens and TVs, I just had to rest my brain after the incident." Verstappen is a prolific sim racer in his spare time, and he added that it proved very useful to get himself prepared for a racing return. "Basically, I did the endurance race on the sim just to see if everything was working well, that I didn't get dizzy or whatever," he said. "It was fine. The first few laps, the focus was a bit off. But I think it was nice just to get back into it." Verstappen said that, heading to Hungary, he could see people within the team were concerned that he wouldn't be his usual self stepping back into an F1 car, but that those concerns were quickly removed. "Getting back into an F1 car, everything was miles faster, but also that I could feel everyone was a bit like, 'How's it going to be?'" he admitted. "[But] that was the motivation to show them that I'm fine."
"Very difficult to handle"
Verstappen's father, Jos, sitting alongside Max for the interview, explained the crash aftermath from his perspective and said that he was very unimpressed by the Mercedes response as Hamilton went on to win the race. "When you see that happening, with such a big impact, you don't think of anything else," Verstappen senior said. "I ran down the stairs, had to go to the Medical Centre, I just wanted to see him. "Afterwards, you look at the incident and how things are happening. I have my own view about what happened there. "But also, after, they were celebrating like they won the championship, Toto [Wolff] and the driver, and I was sitting with him in the hospital to see if everything is alright. "As a dad, I don't like that. I mean, you can't... you put somebody in a hospital, and then they were celebrating like crazy. For me, that was very difficult to handle."
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