“Could’ve been a lot worse”: Max Verstappen reacts after narrowly missing out on victory in British GP

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen has claimed that he was happy to finish P2 and narrowly miss out on the victory at the British Grand Prix, as the result could have been a lot worse given the way it started for him. The three-time world champion found himself on the back foot quickly, as he was unable to gain on the Mercedes pair of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton ahead of him after making the pass on Lando Norris for P3 on the opening lap.

To compound his misery in the opening stint, he found himself passed by Norris and Oscar Piastri and closed in by Carlos Sainz in P6. However, Red Bull pulled off a blinder of a strategy to send him out on hard tires in the final phase after the rain intervention.

Speaking in his post-race interview, Max Verstappen credited the team for his podium in Silverstone on Sunday and said:

"At the end, the call from the team to be on the hard tyre instead of the soft was definitely helping me out. That's why we also finished second today. It could have been a lot worse but with making the right calls we still got onto the podium and I'm of course very happy with that."

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Max Verstappen analyzes his P2 finish at the British GP

Max Verstappen stated that he did not have the pace in his RB20 in the main race and pointed out that it wasn't looking 'great' for him at one point in the race.

As quoted by the aforementioned source, the Dutch driver said:

"We just didn't have the pace today. I was slowly dropping back when it mattered at the beginning. It didn't look great at some point - I was really thinking are we going to finish fifth or sixth? But we made the right calls."

"Going from the slicks to the inters and also from the inters back to the slicks - I think it was every time the right lap," he added.

It has been a roller coaster of a weekend for Max Verstappen, as he sustained substantial floor damage in the qualifying session after he ran off in the changeable condition in the Q1 session at Copse corner.

But somehow he managed to qualify in P4, behind the Mercedes pair and Lando Norris. Despite not having the race pace that he expected, the British GP weekend turned out well for him, as he managed to increase his championship lead over the McLaren driver to 84 points.