Verstappen analyses the safety car stop and the 'poor' hard tyre choice by Red Bull

11:05, 03 Jun

byOlly Darcy

Max Verstappen said that the hard tyres that Red Bull put him on to end the Spanish Grand Prix were "poor", leading to his capituation in Barcelona.

Due to a late safety car after Kimi Antonelli retired from the Grand Prix, the frontrunners came in to change their tyres. However, Red Bull and Verstappen put on the hard tyres, while the rest of the leading group put on the soft tyres.

As a result, the Dutchman was on the back foot, almost sliding into the wall on the restart as Charles Leclerc drove by. George Russell then looked for a move into turn 1, with Verstappen then going off track and rejoining ahead of the Brit.

The Red Bull driver was then told over the team radio to give the position back, but he ended up swerving into Russell and colliding with him, giving himself and a ten-second time penalty to drop from P5 down to P10.

Verstappen also received three penalty points for the incident, meaning he sits on 12, just one away from a race ban.

Verstappen knew he was a ‘sitting duck’ at the restart

After the Grand Prix, the 27-year-old debriefed that whole section of the Grand Prix that changed its complexion.

"I mean, at that point, I was not sure what soft tyre we had left," started Verstappen to several media sources, including GPblog.

"I knew that it was not going to be like a one-lap old tyre. But yeah, unfortunately, I think the hard tyre just was really poor.

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"I thought maybe it could have been a bit better, but it wasn't. And especially with six laps left, everyone can go flat out on a soft, and then you're just limited compared to everyone else on the soft," he continued.

The Dutchman was then asked whether he felt like a 'sitting duck' on those tyres in the final few laps: "For sure. We'll analyse it all. But, I mean, up until that point, I think we definitely did the right thing."

This article was written in collaboration with Mitchel van de Hoef