Max Verstappen owns up to rare unseen error at Brazil GP

Max Verstappen has owned up to making a rare mistake at the start of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. 

Four-time Formula 1 world champion Verstappen produced an incredible comeback drive as he charged from 21st on the grid to finish second behind McLaren’s Lando Norris in a rain-affected race at Interlagos. 

While Verstappen made up ground fast with an amazing opening few laps, things did not get off to the best of starts when the lights went out. Red Bull has been plagued by poor getaways throughout the season, but on this occasion, its star driver took the blame. 

“To be honest, I had a very slow reaction time off the line because I was holding the clutch wrong, so I had to react very quickly. Then I was slow off the line, and that was my mistake,” the Dutchman admitted in the post-race press conference. 

“But then I just got a bit unlucky in the first three corners, where it was just like a traffic jam. There were three or four cars in front blocking basically how much I could pass. Actually, Lewis had a very good first lap. He could really get through those cars, so I was a little bit disappointed that I couldn't make the same headway. 

“But then, within two laps, I was just flying by cars, almost every corner. We had a lot more grip, I guess, than most in the midfield. I don't know what lap I was in the top 10, but it all happened very quickly.” 

Despite his phenomenal fightback to second, Verstappen was left deeply unhappy with the balance of his Red Bull after the first stint, labelling the RB22 a “disaster to drive”. 

"As soon as I switched to the slicks, I had an extreme amount of oversteer in the car in the high-speed corners, which made it super difficult to drive," he explained. 

"We need to understand if something broke on the car, some kind of aero loss or whatever, because this was not normal. I sit here, of course, very happy with second, but at the same time, I know there was more in it if the car had been in good shape. Unfortunately, that was not the case. I actually did most of the race with a car that was not in good shape.”

Verstappen added: “We have to understand why or what went wrong with the car as soon as we went to the slick tyres, because even when I switched back to the Inter tyres at the end, the car was night and day different to my first stint. That shows that there is something wrong.”