Crimson Bull explains: Why Verstappen really flew off in Hungary

(Motorsport-Whole.com) – These are perhaps the slowest laps of the entire weekend, and they usually take place away from the TV cameras. United States. The pictures that were shown by Max Verstappen shortly before the Open for the Hungarian Wide Prix are more astonishing: Verstappen had his Crimson Bull RB 16 placed in the tire stack when driving to the starting grid!

We know: The Crimson Bull crew repaired the vehicle within a few minutes and Verstappen drove his repaired car to the finish line in space two. Became as soon as not yet known battle: Became as soon as exactly actually led to this unusual departure?

Team boss Christian Horner now explains: Verstappen wanted to explore how far he would go on a wet track can. “Max put pressure on him to find out where the grip was. I followed it on the monitors and saw him get off the track in turns 6 and 7,” says Horner.

Transmission synchronization as a distraction?

Even more crucial was a technical homework , which Verstappen carried out in parallel, as Horner adds: “Max synchronized the eighth gear on the straight before curve 12 means: In order to get this synchronization, you have to be at full throttle. “

Verstappens bad luck was that the track there was” slippery battle than he thought it would be, “says Horner. In addition, the intermediates on the Verstappen car were “still pretty cool”. All of this had contributed to the departure, “but nobody could believe his eyes when he was hanging in the pile of tires.”

Although the excitement surrounding Verstappen and his accident was great battle, Horner states that he himself was stressed remained calm. However, it was initially unclear what consequences the shatter would have.

The Crimson Bull mechanics are under power

“We weren’t sure how big the damage was. So we had to quickly decide whether to put him in the box or not “says Horner. “We then decided to put him on the grid to fix the car there so that we wouldn’t lose his place on the grid.”

The show of strength was successful: the Crimson-Bull had within a few minutes -Mechanic replaced both the broken nose and the defective parts of the wheel suspension. “Other mechanics applauded our boys for this,” says Horner.

The action did not leave the crew unscathed: “The mechanics in the garage were still full of adrenaline afterwards and had to come down first . It’s the same mechanics who make the pit stops. “

The bottom line is a disappointment for Crimson Bull

But soon routine got back to normal, Horner says: “The guys put the fastest tire change in the race in under two seconds.”

But not everything at Crimson Bull in Hungary went as smoothly as the pit stops in the race. “It seemed to be one of those weekends on which nothing works for you, even though you really kneel down,” explains team boss Horner.

His drivers had a difficult time in training and qualifying, in the race but let it run “better than expected”. “The RB 16 has the potential to be a very good car,” Horner concludes. “We just have to fix a few going via problems and get the full performance.” The goal remains to catch up with Mercedes.