Verstappen admits getting caught out in huge Dutch GP crash

Max Verstappen says he was too eager on the throttle but has had worse impacts than his huge crash on the opening lap of the Dutch Grand Prix that caused a red flag.

A pre-race downpour had resulted in a drying track, with all drivers starting on slick tires but having to deal with a wet surface in the final sector. Running through the final corner, Verstappen started to lose the rear of his car and tried to catch the slide, overcorrecting and hitting the barrier on the outside of the banked corner at high speed.

The heavy impact quickly led to a red flag to clear up the huge amount of debris that was strewn across the circuit, and allow an inspection of the barrier. Verstappen climbed out of his car unaided and stated he was OK over team radio, although the severity of the impact led to the automatic deployment of the medical car.

“It was quite wet in that corner,” Verstappen told Sky Sports. “As soon as I went through the corner, I could see a bit of a dry line coming. I thought I could accelerate again up, suddenly it accelerated a lot. It caught me out, simple as that. I tried to correct it, but couldn’t.

“Then of course you hit the wall, and honestly it could've been a lot worse – there were a lot of cars behind me. Luckily, it all went well.”

On the impact, Verstappen added: “It was a decent hit, but I’ve had worse.”

While disappointed not to finish the final edition of his home race at Zandvoort, Verstappen was more focused on the lack of overall pace from Red Bull.

“If you look at the average of the whole season, we have been fourth fastest," he said. "This weekend highlighted that, we definitely are a little bit behind – we want to be closer. Maybe in Monza we are, but I don’t know.

“Of course we're getting towards the end of the season now; you also have to look at next year. I think there are a few things in the car that we are looking at that can only be changed next year to really find a lot more performance. So we'll try to maximize everything we can with this car, but of course it's not going to be the most straightforward end to the season. We'll try to do the best we can.”