Verstappen: We didn't think it was going to be so wet

Verstappen stunned with his pole lap in qualifying for the British Grand Prix on Saturday, wringing the neck of his RB21 that sported a skinny rear wing, benefitting from top speed on the straights while the Dutchman kept it pointing in the right direction in the corners.

Of course there was a trade-off, which was stability in wet conditions, which was the case during the race in Silverstone on Sunday, and Verstappen was hit badly by that.

He couldn't keep up with the McLarens and spun behind the Safety Car and recovered to finish fifth, which wasn't the result the reigning Formula 1 champion would've hoped for after starting from pole.

"Today wasn't great," Verstappen said of his race in Red Bull Racing's race report. "We didn't think it was going to be so wet today; the weather forecast overnight changed and it was not in our favour, so it was really difficult with the rear wing that we had today."

He blamed Red Bull's inability to balance his car for the radical setup direction of the RB21 adding: "Every time we were low on downforce and couldn't balance it out in the high and low speed, with the tools that we had.

"Of course, I had the spin and we lost a lot of positions at the restart," he went on. "I don't really know what happened as I tried to go on the throttle, but we recovered it as much as we could to get to P5.

"Even after that happened, I continued and the car had no pace which wasn't great. From a positive side, we got our strategy right and did the right thing with the pit stop and staying on the inters. All the calls were correct but the inters just lacked a bit of pace.

"That is racing though, we will never be happy with fifth, but we move on to the next race. The race wasn't that enjoyable for me but it was nice to see Nico get his first podium and I'm sure he will be celebrating tonight.

"Spa is next and my favourite on the calendar, so hopefully we will go a bit better there," Verstappen concluded.

Commenting on Verstappen's race, Red Bull Team boss Christian Horner said: "We took a bit of a gamble with the weather, expecting a dry race and obviously when you have very low downforce in those conditions it is next to impossible.

"I think Max did really well, he stuck with it and he got unlucky at the restart," he added, and referring to the incident behind the Safety Car which earned Oscar Piastri a ten-second time penalty; he said: "I'm not sure what happened with Oscar. But it put Max on the wrong part of the track and then he had the spin which put him down in the order.

"Once the circuit started to dry up, he managed to pick his way through the pack and it was a good recovery to P5," the Briton concluded.

Verstappen leaves Silverstone further away from F1 championship leader Oscar Piastri, as he is now 69 points behind the Australian.