Seventeen Minutes

0:00 Verstappen crashes on the way to the grid

The Hungarian Grand Prix, July 2020. The race has not even started, and Max Verstappen has already crashed.

It happens on the lap to the grid, on a wet track. Two hundred and forty-nine kilometres an hour. He shifts into eighth gear, and a quarter of a second later, he brakes. Six gears down in less than a second and a half. The brake comes off, then on again. He goes straight on, into the barrier.

Verstappen later said he thought his race was over. On the radio, he tells his team what is broken.

A broken front wing. A damaged front left suspension. And twenty-three minutes to the formation lap.

Red Bull have less than a minute to decide where that car goes next.

1:02 Why eighth gear on a lap that does not count

Why eighth gear, on a lap that does not count? Christian Horner, then the team principal, later wrote that Verstappen was trying to synchronise eighth gear on the run down to turn twelve, which meant going flat out.

Red Bull's own guide to the race start says that early in the formation lap, a driver tries to learn the gears, priming the shift system by staying in each one for a certain time, at a certain torque. Lose the sync, and it costs. Three years earlier in Baku, Verstappen lost gear sync on his last qualifying lap, and said he was losing a lot of lap time on the straights.

But on the formation lap that afternoon, not one car reached eighth. In the race, Verstappen would next use it at nearly three hundred kilometres an hour.

The same guide calls the lap to the grid the final chance to practise with the car. The timing data show six of the twenty drivers slipping into eighth on the way there. Verstappen was the last, less than a kilometre from the grid.

Horner added that the track was more slippery than Verstappen thought, and the tyres were pretty cold. Verstappen said he locked up, came off the brakes, and locked up again.

2:16 Garage or grid: the call

There are two places that car can go.

The first is the garage, for a more controlled repair. But the pit exit closes at ten to three. A car still in the pit lane after that starts from the end of the pit lane, and only joins the race once the whole field has gone past.

The second is the grid. The rules say a car may only start from the grid if it gets there under its own power. Get there, and Verstappen keeps seventh place. Then the repair has to happen on the grid, against the clock.

Horner wrote that they had to decide quickly. On the screens they could see that the track rod and the pushrod had gone. What they could not tell was whether the wishbone or the upright had gone too. If it had, he wrote, that was game over.

In Red Bull's own account, the Hungaroring is a track where position is vital. They sent him to the grid.

3:13 134 metres at walking pace

He has already reversed out of the barrier. Now he drives on, in first gear, never faster than ninety-five kilometres an hour. At twelve minutes to three, he stops at the back of the grid. Engine off, as the rules require.

Normally, Red Bull's chief mechanic said, a car is put on skates at the back of the grid and rolled to its place. Without a front wing, they could not jack it up. So they pushed it. One hundred and thirty-four metres, at walking pace.

While they push, the pit exit closes.

Twenty seconds later, the car stops in its grid box.

Now the line. At the five-minute signal, every car on the grid must have its wheels fitted. Miss it, and the penalty is a ten-second stop-and-go in the race. Usually, that line is the three-minute signal. In 2020, it is five.

The signal is due at five past three. That leaves fourteen minutes and thirty-eight seconds.

4:16 The repair against the clock

Jonathan Wheatley, on the pit wall, asks chief mechanic Phil Turner how long it will take. In Formula One's own film of the repair, Turner answers that it will probably take longer than they have, and that they will try. Wheatley tells Helmut Marko they will have to do it faster than they have ever done it.

Motorsport.com reported that Mercedes told Lewis Hamilton the car could not be repaired on the grid.

The governing body's technical delegate later listed the job. The front wing and nose. The left front track rod. The left pushrod.

Horner said that would usually take an hour and a half. The team's chief mechanic put it at forty to forty-five minutes, in the garage, in a hurry. In the grid box, they have less than fifteen.

The journalist Peter Windsor counted fourteen mechanics at the car. The 2020 rules had cut the number of people allowed on the grid, so spare parts came by relay, people running from the garage to a gate and passing them across.

The rules allow the repair. A team can replace a part on the grid without asking first, as long as the broken part stays in full view of the scrutineer assigned to the car.

Eleven minutes left. The national anthem plays across the circuit, and Verstappen has gone to stand for it. He later said he was very calm. Let's see if they are going to make it.

The hard part is the track rod. Mark Hughes wrote on Formula One's own website that on this car, it attached to the steering rack inside the chassis, behind a bulkhead. On every other car, the rack was out in the open and easy to get at. Horner said you would need to be a sensational piano player to work your fingers in that space.

Then the outer end. To reach it, the whole brake duct fairing has to come off. Nine minutes left, and almost everything is off. Nothing has gone back on.

In the same film, Wheatley asks how long they can keep going and still get the car off the grid.

Seven minutes left, on Motorsport.com's timeline. Chief engineer Paul Monaghan checks what is still on the car and calls for equipment to test it for stress. Red Bull says parts that looked undamaged were X-rayed. If the wishbone is hurt, all of this has been for nothing. Horner wrote that the results came out fine.

Less than six minutes left, and the film catches the answer. A second line, one minute past the signal. If the car is not finished by then, they pull it off the grid.

Five minutes left. Verstappen comes back and straps himself in. Four or five mechanics are still on the front left suspension.

Three minutes left. The last bolt goes into the pushrod. The car is structurally whole again. It still has no nose, no brake duct and no left front wheel.

7:15 The five-minute signal

Forty-six seconds left. The wheel is still not on. Verstappen said he could see the mechanics screaming at each other to put it on.

In the film, the pit wall calls thirty seconds. The wheel goes on.

How close they came depends on who tells it. Horner said about twenty-five seconds. Motorsport.com said twenty-six. Formula One's own website reported around thirty. The governing body wrote that evening that every car had its tyres fitted at the signal. There was no penalty.

Mechanics from other teams applauded Red Bull's crew off the grid.

But nobody has driven it. The steering and suspension were set up on the grid, without the usual precision tools and without a level floor. Horner said they knew it was safe, and they knew it was not going to be ideal.

At nine minutes past three, the engine starts. At ten past, the car moves under its own power for the first time in twenty-two minutes.

Verstappen said he spent the formation lap checking the wheels. For the chief mechanic, seeing the car through the first corner, with the driver saying everything was fine, was an even bigger relief than the wheels going on.

8:32 The lights go out

The lights go out. Verstappen starts seventh. Twenty seconds later, he is third.

Fourteen minutes after the five-minute signal, the same crew is waiting in the pit lane for Verstappen's first stop. Horner put it at two seconds.

Early in the race, Hamilton is told who is behind him. On the radio, he has a question.

Verstappen finishes second, eight point seven seconds behind Hamilton. He said second felt like a victory. Ross Brawn, then running the sporting side of Formula One, called the repair as extraordinary and impressive as anything he had ever seen. On the slow-down lap, Verstappen told his team who he had to thank.

9:18 The window closes

The window for the decision was less than a minute. The window to get the car ready was seventeen.

On the grid, you can change parts without asking first. You cannot ask for more time.