The unseen moment with Ocon which explains Verstappen’s shock Q2 exit

Red Bull and Max Verstappen furiously blamed race control following his surprise elimination in Q2.

It was galling turn of events for Red Bull. When Q2 was first stopped because of Carlos Sainz Jnr’s crash, Verstappen was fourth and Sergio Perez was quickest in the other car. But both drivers fell into the drop zone as other drivers improved in the brief period when the session resumed before being stopped again when Lance Stroll crashed.

The team claim the delay between Stroll’s crash and the subsequent red flag both allowed other drivers to complete lap times, pushing Verstappen down the order, and prevented a restart which could have given him the opportunity to set a quicker time.

Both claims looks doubtful. Verstappen was vulnerable in 10th place when Stroll lost control of his car. At the same moment, Charles Leclerc was accelerating to the line to set the time which dropped Verstappen to 11th.

The gap between Stroll’s car hitting the barrier and Leclerc’s crossing the line was about a second. There was therefore no realistic chance that a red flag could have been shown before Verstappen fell into the drop zone.

An earlier red flag could have left enough time for a restart, but it would have lasted only one-and-a-half minutes at best. As it takes more than a minute for a car to leave the pits and reach the starting line, out of the 13 drivers who would have wanted to set a time, only a tiny number were ever going to. Given Red Bull’s garage is situated at the far end of the pit lane, Verstappen’s chances of getting a lap in under those circumstances were slim to none.

Race control have been surprisingly slow to deploy Safety Cars, Virtual Safety Car and red flags on many earlier occasions this year. The Azerbaijan Grand Prix was a notable example: Carlos Sainz Jnr and Sergio Perez’s crash littered the track with debris, yet the race was not neutralised for more than a minute. It is fair to question whether this is the correct approach from a safety point of view, but it’s not the reason Verstappen failed to reach Q3 today.

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However Red Bull team principal Christian Horner indicated there was another contributing factor in Verstappen’s elimination. “We got compromised on the first lap,” he said, “Esteban Ocon passing Max into the first turn.”

Verstappen was able to complete a full lap in Q2 between the first red flag for Sainz’s crash and the second for Stroll’s shunt. But he backed off and took over two minutes to complete the lap. What went wrong?

The Red Bull drivers were among the last five cars to join the track when Q2 restarted. Verstappen was behind Stroll, followed by the Alpines of Pierre Gasly and Ocon, then Perez.

Ocon, who was 15th, was in a hurry to start his lap, climbing all over the back of Gasly, who moved in closer to Verstappen. Finally Ocon went for it and passed Gasly at Juncao, and pursued Verstappen on the climb to the timing line. As they began their lap, Ocon passed Verstappen, dooming the Red Bull driver to a compromised lap in his slipstream.

Red Bull appeared to have a problem with the Global Positioning System data provided to them at this point. As Verstappen bailed out of his slow lap stuck behind Ocon he told race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase: “You need to help me with gaps.” He replied: “Yeah I’ve lost GPS, Max.”

Verstappen found space to begin another flying lap. But as he began it, he passed Stroll, who was trying to drag his bent Aston Martin out of the barrier at the Curva do Sol. “Ah there’s a crash!” he exclaimed. “Fuck!”

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The earlier incident with Ocon meant Verstappen was doomed from the moment Stroll crashed ahead of him. Verstappen and Ocon had a controversial clash at this race six years ago, but the Alpine driver may have cause to remember the incident between the pair in Las Vegas last year.

On that occasion he also passed Verstappen before beginning a lap, and the Red Bull driver retaliated by diving down the inside of him at turn one, compromising his line through the corner. Ocon came off worse that time, dropping out in Q1. This time Verstappen lost out, and the timing of race control’s response to the Stroll incident had nothing to do with it.

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