Verstappen retirement due to brake-by-wire failure

Verstappen has been challenging Kimi Raikkonen for fourth position, however, a mistake relegated him to fighting off teammate Ricciardo for supremacy within the team until the issue ended his race. 

Speaking to media after the race, Verstappen reflected on a tough three weeks for the team that saw him win one week ago in Austria.

“It’s not a nice way to finish the triple-header but luckily last week was good and the two weeks before were also positive. That’s racing sometimes. I’ve had it many times before and for sure it will happen also in the future, but of course I wish I would have finished fifth or at least collected some points. Because now we have nothing.”

“It was quite weird, because on lap one I had a brake-by-wire issue, the pedal fell to the floor in Turn 3 but then it recovered and everything was going fine after that. Then after the second safety car I braked for Turn 16 and the pedal literally went to the floor, the rear brakes locked up and I spun off the track.

"We will now start to investigate what actually happened. Even without the brake issue we were just too slow on the straights to do anything today, you could see it even with Daniel when he was attacking Bottas; when we open the DRS we are the same speed as them without DRS, so you just cannot do anything.”

“I think so far this season I have actually been okay with the reliability of our car, so it’s just a shame that it happened here. When you know you have a difficult weekend, you of course want to take some points back home. But one positive aspect of the weekend is that I think we actually have a good car.”

The strong performances by Verstappen have seen him fight his way back up the championship standings after a miserable beginning to his 2018 season. He may be in sixth position but he is just 23 points away from Kimi Raikkonen in third place having looked a country mile away from his rivals a few races ago.