Verstappen's pole bid thwarted by Q1 gravel incident at Silverstone

Red Bull Racing/Red Bull Content Pool

SILVERSTONE, England – A trip through the gravel during the first part of the British Grand Prix qualifying session dashed Max Verstappen’s chances at clinching pole position, according to the three-time world champion.

The Red Bull driver encountered trouble after running wide at Copse while on his first flying lap on slick tyres in Q1. Despite sliding through the gravel, Verstappen managed to keep his car from hitting the barriers. He ultimately recovered to secure a fourth-place start on the grid, behind Lando Norris, Lewis Hamilton, and George Russell. However, Verstappen attributed the car's reduced performance to damage sustained on the floor.

"It was just super unlucky," Verstappen said. "I came out of Turn Seven, heading towards Copse, and it started to rain. I knew that the people in front of me didn’t have that rain patch and, of course, they were also on slicks. I knew in Q1 we needed that slick lap in because you never know if it's going to rain more and the session is over."

He continued, "Naturally of course I tried to keep the speed up. I did slow down knowing it was raining on my visor, but it still snapped on me, and then I had to keep it out of the wall going off-line. But then I had to take the gravel which ripped the floor apart, missed quite a few bits on the car. Even though I do think the team did a great job trying to recover some of the bits and tried to optimize the balance front to rear. But yeah, that basically ruined our qualifying. I was happy to be in Q3 already with the damage that we had. And to be P4 is probably a bit of a positive surprise."

Verstappen revealed that his Red Bull team worked tirelessly to repair the car between runs, but this led to fluctuating handling characteristics from lap to lap.

"They kept on repairing the floor, so my balance was shifting every lap. And then I was changing things on my wheel every lap to try and find a better compromise, so probably some bits we tipped it over the edge to try and compensate," he explained. "The floor had a lot of holes in it, so you always try to patch that up. A few bits were missing or flapping, so you, of course, want to get rid of that or at least try to put a few pieces together and try and make it work. Basically, what they did, they cut a few bits off that were hanging loose, so you try to just optimize the losses."

Engineers measure downforce in points, with the scale varying somewhat among teams.

Asked how much downforce the damage cost him, Verstappen estimated, "Initially it was 100, which is a lot. A lot! We got it down a little bit. But it's still a lot."

While the gravel incident may have thwarted Verstappen's pole aspirations, his resilient effort and his team's swift adaptability enabled him to still secure a commendable fourth-place starting position.

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