Verstappen positive despite British GP retirement

Max Verstappen has spun a positive outlook on Red Bull's current performance in Formula One despite him retiring and Daniel Ricciardo only finishing fifth in the British Grand Prix on Sunday, saying that although the team was too slow at Silverstone, they have had a good few weeks.

The Dutchman was cruising in fifth position at the weekend, but was forced to retire following a brake-by-wire and gearbox failure, but even though he admits it was "not a nice way" to end the race, he believes in the current Red Bull car.

“It’s not a nice way to finish the triple header but luckily last week was good and the two weeks before were also positive,” he said.

“That’s racing sometimes. I’ve had it many times before and for sure it will happen also in the future, but of course I wish I would have finished fifth or at least collected some points. Because now we have nothing.

“It was quite weird, because on lap one I had a brake-by-wire issue, the pedal fell to the floor in Turn 3 but then it recovered and everything was going fine after that. Then after the second safety car I braked for Turn 16 and the pedal literally went to the floor, the rear brakes locked up and I spun off the track.

“We will now start to investigate what actually happened.”

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Verstappen emerged as victorious in the GP before Britain, in Austria, and these two races, along with a podium place in France, have combined for a positive period for the Red Bull driver in F1's first ever 'triple-header' of a race in three consecutive weekends.

He did, however, concede that Red Bull were "just too slow" to compete against Ferrari and Red Bull at Silverstone.

“Even without the brake issue we were just too slow on the straights to do anything,” Verstappen added.

“You could see it even with Daniel [Ricciardo] when he was attacking [Valtteri] Bottas; when we open the DRS we are the same speed as them without DRS, so you just cannot do anything.

“I think so far this season I have actually been okay with the reliability of our car, so it’s just a shame that it happened here. When you know you have a difficult weekend, you of course want to take some points back home.

“But one positive aspect of the weekend is that I think we actually have a good car.”