Max responds to manhole incident: 'This shouldn't have happened'
Published on 26 April 2019 by Mike Motilall
Max Verstappen is quite surprised that a manhole cover came loose after the first free practice on the Baku street circuit. The incident with George Russell’s Williams ended the first session of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix prematurely after only about ten minutes.
The manhole cover came loose after Charles Leclerc drove over it with his Ferrari, after that, Russell came into contact with it. The incident briefly triggered a red flag, soon after it became apparent that the session would not be restarted.
“They are going to fix it now, but of course it never should have happened”, Max tells Sky Sports. “George’s car is quite badly damaged because of this.” He realizes that this could have happened to him as well. “Running over a loose cover with 300 km/hr is not nice.”
“It will take a while”, says the Dutchman regarding the work that is still being done at this moment on the circuit in Azerbaijan. “I heard that there are more than three hundred covers that need to be checked. That’s not ideal.” On the question whether the cancellation of the first free practice is possibly good for the rest of the weekend, Max replies: “Well, it’s never a good thing. But in the end it’s the same for everyone so it makes it a bit more exciting.”
“You have less information”, the youngster explains. “I think it would have been more painful if this had happened in FP2, because you can still do a long run and then you do get a picture of what can happen on Sunday. But we need to make do with less information now.”
At Williams they have confirmed by now that they will have to build a new chassis for George Russell. This means the young Briton won’t see any more action this Friday.
