British Grand Prix data reveals true damage to Max Verstappen’s Red Bull RB20

Max Verstappen was out of pole contention for the British Grand Prix after gaining significant damage to his Red Bull car.

The Dutchman had an incident in Q1 at the entrance of Copse that sent him into the gravel and significantly damaged the floor of his car, leaving him out of contention against McLaren and Mercedes.

Max Verstappen floor damage takes him out of pole contention

George Russell took pole at Silverstone ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris. Max Verstappen wasn’t even in the fight as his RB20 suffered damage to the floor during Q1.

The Dutch driver suffered oversteer at the entrance of Copse with the track still slippery and the soft tyres running in cold temperatures.

Verstappen almost recreated the image of Sergio Perez stuck in the gravel, but luckily for him, he didn’t lose the rear of his car and was able to save it. Although, severely damaging his car in the process.

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Despite this, Verstappen made it through Q1 and Q2, albeit with very discreet lap times. In Q3, when everyone was risking more, it became clear that his car had a problem. And indeed, telemetry data confirms that the RB20 was aerodynamically handicapped in the high-speed corners compared to George Russell’s Mercedes.

Before arriving at the fast Copse corner, the differences are very small. Russell still manages to lead Verstappen at this point by over a tenth of a second.

However, after Maggotts and Becketts and on the change of direction towards Chapel, Max has to make a correction which also costs him a bad corner exit before the long Hangar Straight and increases the delta by just under a tenth and a half more.

But it is undoubtedly the fast corner of Stowe in Sector 3 where Max loses almost two tenths of a second to Russell.

At Stowe, the Mercedes driver reaches a speed of 240 km/h while Verstappen can’t go faster than 231 km/h.

That’s a very significant difference that can only be explained by the fact that the RB20’s underbody was severely damaged. Even the Haas of Nico Hülkenberg was faster than Verstappen in Sector 3.

From here on the delta between Russell and Verstappen is close to four tenths of a second, although Max manages a slight better traction through the last two corners to cut the delta to +0.384s at the end.

Despite this, Red Bull has once again saved itself from a worse situation. With Ferrari completely out of the game and Oscar Piastri having a bad out-lap to prepare his tyres, Verstappen was able to secure a P4 which, as bad as it is, puts him in a position where he can certainly fight for victory in tomorrow’s race.

Read next: Revealed: How George Russell beat Lewis Hamilton to British Grand Prix pole position