Verstappen mea culpa after his race mistakes

Max Verstappen (Red Bull) returned a rough copy on Sunday in Shanghai (China). Looking at the results sheets, however, this is hardly obvious: starting fifth, the Dutchman finished in the same place. The young pilot was also pouting in the parc ferme.

“I’m not happy with what I did”, announces Jos Verstappen’s son. Several errors punctuated his race. Discreet during the first half of the event, Max Verstappen took advantage of the arrival of the Safety Car to change tires in the pits. A good strategic pick that allows him to catch up with the leading group and even attack Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes).

On the 39th lap, the Red Bull attempted a daring attack on the Flèche d'Argent from the outside of the long curve (Turn 8). Intelligently pushed by Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen leaves the track, and loses a place to… of the future winner Daniel Ricciardo. “I lost the car on the way outside. There was debris and dirt. Maybe I should have waited a little longer for doubling properly », recognizes the pilot bearing the number 33.

A maneuver which certainly costs Max Verstappen the podium. This will then entangle the pedals and impact Sebastian Vettel five laps later. “I made a mistake, I tried to delay my braking at the hairpin and I blocked the rear axle”, he simply comments.

Helmut Marko, head of the Junior Team sector for Red Bull, does not defend his protégé. “There was a victory to be had, he wasted that opportunity. It was a mistake on his part, he apologized for it. This can happen in motorsport” analyzes the Austrian on the Spanish channel Movistar.

The panel of commissioners had little taste for this sense of attack and penalized Max Verstappen by ten seconds, enough to relegate him to fifth place.

Discover the analysis of the Chinese GP carried out by our special correspondents in issue 2161 of AUTOhebdo, available from Monday evening in digital version on all platforms, and from Wednesday on newsstands.