Max Verstappen won the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia in commanding fashion. But things could have turned out very differently.
Max Verstappen cruised to a dominant victory in the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, but things could have come unstuck thanks to a rogue nail.
Nothing appeared capable of stopping the Red Bull driver throughout the weekend at the Sepang International Circuit, though a sizeable piece of metal made a decent attempt at it.
The race was thrown into disarray after a botched start procedure forced drivers to be called back into the pits, with software updates required to eradicate a "bug" that caused the farcicial scenes on the initial formation lap.
And as Verstappen trundled down the pit lane behind the safety car, he picked up a nail in one of his tyres.
Once he had brought the RB22 to a halt, Verstappen radioed his team to report the issue.
"There's a nail in my tyre," the four-time F1 drivers' champion said.
Race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase immediately asked whether it was the front-left.
"Front-left," the 72-time grand prix winner confirmed.
The mechanics waiting trackside with cooling equipment had already spotted the nail themselves, given it was hardly difficult to miss.
Rules working in Verstappen's favour
The mechanics waiting trackside with cooling equipment had already spotted the nail themselves, given it was hardly difficult to miss.
With the regulations allowing for tyre changes during a red-flag neutralisation, a potentially disastrous scenario was negated.
Verstappen opted for a fresh, nail-free set of intermediates, while some of his rivals, less fortunately, went straight onto slick tyres for the restart.
A further safety car period then gave Verstappen the chance to switch from intermediates to slicks along with everyone else, setting him up for this comfortable victory.
- RN365 Staff
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