https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/we...h-gp/10332702/
Wedged AlphaTauri endplate wrecked Verstappen’s British GP
Max Verstappen’s British Grand Prix hopes were wrecked by a front wing endplate from Red Bull’s sister Formula 1 team AlphaTauri getting stuck under his floor and ruining his aerodynamics.
Television footage had shown him hitting a part from Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari early on in the race, and it was thought that it could have been related to that.
However, it was only after the grand prix that Red Bull discovered the problem had actually been caused by the endplate from an AlphaTauri front wing getting embedded underneath the Dutchman's RB18.
The part had been ripped off after AlphaTauri team-mates Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly collided on lap 11, wrecking their own squad’s hope of points.
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, who showed reporters later on a photo of Verstappen in the post-race debrief holding the endplate, reckoned that the disruption to his car’s airflow was costing Verstappen about 20 percent of his peak downforce.
“We didn't have a puncture,” explained Horner, reflecting on Verstappen’s problem.
“He was reporting, because it was so bad, that it felt like a puncture. But basically on lap 11, he hit a piece of debris which was an AlphaTauri part from an incident that they had.
“So he's then done the race with a modified floor that had a piece of an AlphaTauri endplate stuck under the bottom of the car. It stayed in there and got stuck and wedged itself almost like a blockage.”