How broken was Max Verstappen's car in Brazil?

After his now-famous clash with Esteban Ocon during the Brazilian Grand Prix, Max Verstappen and his team claimed that a lot of damage was done to the RB14 which made it impossible for Max to catch up to Lewis Hamilton; but how damaged was the car really?

Verstappen's car wasn't absolutely tattooed by the collision with Ocon, but there was some very visible damage to the right side of the RB14. Let's hear what Verstappen himself described the damage as.

"The bottom of my car was severely damaged, a part was torn out, we lost 50 points downforce," he told SpeedWeek.

"That's huge. Usually we complain to drivers if we lose two or three points. Honestly, I thought my race was over. I had to optimize everything in the vehicle so that I got as much downforce as possible, but it was not ideal."

50 points of downforce, Red Bull's engineers explained, is about ten per cent of the total downforce, which makes all the difference in a sport which is all about the margins.

Still, Verstappen got closer and closer to Hamilton with his damaged car, but he was still over a second behind when the checkered flag waved.

The fact that Verstappen still got closer shows that tyre management is the most important thing in F1, more than losing a bit of downforce. Verstappen has proved to be an excellent manager of his compounds this season, as no blisters were showing on his supersofts compared to Hamilton's, who were all over the place at the end of the race.