Verstappen: Crashes happen but maybe it's a good thing

Friday, 28 June 2019 at 21:20

Max Verstappen is seeing the positives from a big shunt he suffered during FP2 on the opening day of the Austrian Grand Prix weekend, the Dutchman wrecking the rear-end of his Red Bull when the car snapped on him as he powered through the final turn.

The damage was substantial and will have his crew burning the midnight oil to have the car ready for Saturday's running at Red Bull Ring.

Speaking at the end of an incident-packed day on the picturesque Spielberg hills, Verstappen explained, “I was happy in the car, but I was already complaining all my laps about the wind being really tricky."

"In some places... just losing the rear. I got into that corner and suddenly, you can see in the data, the rear turned around, so that definitely didn’t help."

Shortly after the red flag period required to clear the wrecked RB15, Valtteri Bottas also suffered a big shunt as the shortest circuit on the calendar is up there with the meanest.

On the day, most of the top guns had moments of differing degrees, Sebastian Vettel lucky not to suffer a similar fate to Verstappen, while wings were flying around as the sausage kerbs took their toll on track limit transgressors.

"Crashes can happen, unfortunately, but maybe it’s a good thing because they’ll take the whole car apart so a few new parts on it. This year, the cars, in general, are more sensitive to the wind, as you can see as well with Valtteri, at one point, he just lost it," added the Red Bull driver.