It was fall, perhaps the strangest scene of the still young formula-1-season 2020: Max verse crashed on Sunday in Budapest on the way to the starting line-up. While many assumed that the race for the Dutch was thus ended, the Red Bull mechanics brought in the following minutes, and medium-sized miracle.
they repaired the damaged suspension of the RB16 within twelve minutes, and Verstappen drove then even in second place. But how it came to the departure? The low countries self-reported: “I blocked the tires. I went from the brake, wanted to brake, blocked again, and then it just went straight ahead.”
“I had already said in the all round Grip”, Verstappen, the traitor also: “I thought the race was over, but I came out again from the wall. […] I could have and say get out, it’s over.” But the verse explains to fall, you should never give up, which is why he had brought the car in the starting line-up.
“I was very quiet. I thought to myself: ‘let’s see if you can make it.’ And if not, then the race would have been over. Then the disappointing weekend would have been complete. But you have done a great Job,” explained Verstappen, who has not spoken during the waiting time, with Helmut Marko or Christian Horner.
Even opponents are impressed
“What are you supposed to say?”, he shrugs his shoulders and explains: “of Course you can carry a whole conversation about it, but I touched the wall, there was a damage, you tried to fix it, and then you look further.” He had the mechanics just do their job. Praise for the flash-repair by the way, even from other Teams.
“you did That in twelve minutes?”, shows, for example, Mercedes Pilot Lewis Hamilton is impressed when he learns after the race, from the extent of the damage to the suspension. “It was a crazy ten to twelve minutes,” laughs Verstappen, who reports: “I sat in the car and saw the mechanic bellowed at each other.”
At the end of the repair there was still “a last piece of Tape on the suspension, that keeps everything”, says Verstappen. “I gave my thumbs up and they said that everything was repaired,” says the Dutchman, who had used the following formation lap, to check whether the suspension really everything was back in order.
repair in the Grid: For the FIA, everything in the green range
“It felt right, and during the race nothing has happened,” he said. He was driving in the race, also try to be more careful through turn 12, where he was prior to the Start flown. Verstappen explained that the was on cold tires and he had not only adjusted the brake balance a little to the rear so that it is repeated.
“But it’s not as if you would drive like a grandma through the curve. You have to continue to push,” he explains. The FIA had to complain about the repair by the way nothing to. Reminder: renovation work between Qualifying and the race are not allowed. Race Director Michael Masi, therefore, declares: “After Max’s accident, we have to keep Working accurately in the eye.”
“We have sent a few people from our technology Team to observe the process. The entire repair process was compliant. The responsibility for the safety of the vehicle is already in the participants themselves and not with us. Therefore, we were able to determine there was nothing which would have alerted us somehow,” says Masi.
This article was written by Ruben Zimmermann
*The post “Verstappen about the Crash before the Start: “I thought the race would be over …”” is published by Motorsport-Total.com. Contact with the executives here.
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