F1 News

Verstappen makes an expensive mistake: 'That's a very big bill'

Verstappen makes an expensive mistake: 'That's a very big bill'

18-06-2021 16:38
4

GPblog.com

Max Verstappen ended Friday's session at Paul Ricard as the fastest driver on the grid, but his day was far from smooth-sailing. The Dutchman suffered damage in both the first and second free practice sessions at Paul Ricard, so it was not a cheap day for Red Bull Racing.

Verstappen and Bottas make mistakes

There will be a lot said about the kerbs at Turn 2 at Paul Ricard, after both Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen suffered damage due to the high kerbs. It even prompted Mercedes and Red Bull Racing to ask race director Michael Masi if something could be done about it.

Sky Sports analyst Karun Chandhok discussed the corner on the Sky Sports F1 broadcast. "It's the talk of the day. In the morning session Bottas went wide coming out of turn one and then broke his front wing on the kerbs that are at turn two." In the afternoon, it was Verstappen who went wrong in turn two and had damage to his front wing.

Punished hard in turn two

Chandhok understands why the teams complained about the kerbstones. "The level of damage is indeed relatively quite high for this mistake," he said. Chandhok also thinks that going wide in turn two doesn't save a lot of time either.

In Verstappen's case, it went wrong due to too much understeer. "He goes way too wide because of that and in no time you have a ton of damage to the front wing. For a small steering error, that's a huge bill. Masi, however, sounded pretty firm in his response to Mercedes and Red Bull. It doesn't look like he's going to change this."