Max Verstappen sat bandaged after his fifth pole position in a row at the press conference for Formula 1 qualifying at Silverstone 2023.
Of course, the journalists present noticed the brown band-aid on his right hand and asked the Dutchman about it. And indeed, the Red Bull pilot admits: he injured his hand.
“I just sprained my finger a little bit, and my hand bothered me a bit,” he reveals.
But he also doesn’t know exactly how he got injured: “It was on Thursday morning. Maybe I just put my hand down wrong or pressed it wrong,” he puzzles. Comment: “Very strange.”
On Thursday he couldn’t squeeze his hand properly, but it’s better now. He assures: “That’s completely fine now.”
He doesn’t expect any problems in the race on Sunday either: “Well, the adrenaline kicks in anyway. When I’m driving, I don’t think about it that much,” he dismisses.
At least it didn’t seem to affect him in qualifying at Silverstone: confident as ever, the world championship leader drove to his fifth pole in a row – while teammate and world championship “rival” Sergio Perez never made it into the top 10 in the same period.
Formula 1: Max Verstappen “of course went to the limit”
The choppy UK session didn’t put him in danger either, although he says he had to be a little cautious in Q1 and Q2 due to some wet spots on the track. “Of course you go to the limit, but since we know that we have a fast car, you don’t have to go to the 100 percent limit,” he says.
Despite this, he went off the track once at Turn 15 in Q1. “It was very strange because turns 15 and 16 were a bit wet and it was very difficult to see exactly where,” he says. “You could only feel it, so it took a little while to really get the hang of it.”
“And then in Q3, when we just gave it our all, we got a small lead,” said Verstappen, who was 0.241 seconds ahead of Lando Norris (McLaren). “Nevertheless, the gap wasn’t that big today – but it was a great day for us and we’re already looking forward to tomorrow.”