General
"Broken off piece of front wing Verstappen was stuck in bargeboard"
- GPblog.com
Max Verstappen took his first points of the year at the GP of Steiermark. In the final phase of the race the Dutchman was brought back to P3 by the overtaking of Valtteri Bottas. Nevertheless, the race of Verstappen remains strong as he drove with more damage to his car than was initially thought.
Almost immediately it was clear that the damage the RB16 of Verstappen had suffered would have a major impact on the pace of the Red Bull driver. Because of an aggressive approach he lost a piece of his front wing. Chief-engineer Paul Monaghan explained to Motorsport.com why in the end the damage was more severe than initially seemed.
"The wing hit one of the yellow sausages[high kerbstones, ed.] and damaged the underside of the wing endplate. The piece that broke off then got stuck in the bargeboard and that obviously didn't help. Not only did we had a broken front wing but the airflow along the bargeboards was disrupted as well".
Broken wings for Red Bull
As if a broken front wing and an obstruction in the bargeboards wasn't enough Monaghan also reports that there was a little bit of damage to the rear wing of the RB16: "I think that pieces that were stuck in the bargeboards were released after vibration and then damaged the rear wing. The car with which we crossed the finish line was certainly not the same as at the start".
Team boss Christian Horner adds: "The boys immediately saw that there was a significant loss of downforce. However, we were only able to measure the real damage when the car was back in the pitbox after the race. The damage turned out to have had a major effect on the car. In the end it had an impact on the life of the tyres as well".