Max Verstappen "needs to understand what happened" after "night and day" F1 comeback in Brazilian GP

For the third year in a row, Max Verstappen has produced an impressive comeback drive in Brazil. While he won from 17th on the grid in 2024 and drove from the pitlane to the podium last year, Verstappen finished this year's Formula 1 Brazilian Grand Prix in second place after starting 21st.

His start did not go entirely to plan, however, as Verstappen acknowledged in the post-race press conference:

"To be honest, I had a very slow reaction time off the line because I was holding the clutch wrong. I had to very quickly react and then I was slow off the line, so that was my mistake," the four-time world champion admitted.

"Then I just got a bit unlucky in the first three corners where there was a traffic jam, three or four cars in front basically blocking how much I could pass. Actually, Lewis had a very good first lap, he could really get through those cars. I was a little bit disappointed that I couldn't make the same headway."

After that, however, Verstappen cut through the field like a hot knife through butter and soon managed to overtake his championship rival from 2021 as well.

"But then, within two laps, I was just flying by cars, almost every corner. We had a lot more grip, I guess, than most in the midfield. I don't know what lap I was in the top 10, but it all happened very quickly."

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Verstappen then continued his charge towards the podium positions and even appeared to have a potential shot at victory. After the first round of pitstops, however, the RB22 no longer felt the same, the Dutchman concluded post-race.

"As soon as I switched to the slicks, I had an extreme amount of oversteer in the car in the high-speed corners, which made it super difficult to drive," he said.

"We need to understand if something broke on the car, some kind of aero loss or whatever, because this was not normal. I sit here, of course, very happy with second, but at the same time, I know there was more in it if the car had been in good shape.

"Unfortunately, that was not the case. I actually did most of the race with a car that was not in good shape."

That was precisely why Verstappen immediately inspected the rear of his car after climbing out, to see whether there was any damage.

Red Bull had already acknowledged during the race that it could see a loss of rear downforce in the data, but at that point the team led by Laurent Mekies did not yet know whether, or where, the Dutchman might have sustained damage.

"But we have to understand why or what went wrong with the car as soon as we went to the slick tyres, because even when I switched back to the Inter tyres at the end, the car was night and day different to my first stint. That shows that there is something wrong," Verstappen said.

Nevertheless, climbing from 21st to second was still an impressive achievement, which also earned him the Driver of the Day award. Comeback drives at Interlagos have almost become a tradition, but Verstappen stresses that he would like to break that next year and ideally avoid a grid penalty in Sao Paulo.

"Maybe next year I'd love to start a bit further up front instead of starting from the back or the pitlane, but we'll find out next year," the current runner-up in the championship standings said.

"I like races like this, but next year, let's try and just start a bit further up front, please. That would be great to start with."

To read more Motorsport.com articles visit our website .