"Max Verstappen would’ve retired": Red Bull race engineer reveals how 3x F1 champion narrowly escaped DNF

A Red Bull engineer recently revealed a clutch issue with Max Verstappen during a race earlier this season. This could have potentially led the Dutchman to a second retirement.

The RB20 has been extremely reliable this season. Although there was a moment during the Australian Grand Prix when Verstappen retired early, that was his only DNF. However, there was a small incident during another race that could have added another DNF to the Dutchman's race results this season.

Red Bull engineer Michael Manning recently said that their #1 car that Verstappen pilots, suffered a sensor issue during a race. While he did not reveal what race it was, he mentioned that the issue was major and had to be solved within a lap, without which, the car would have been retired.

"There was a sensor problem with the clutch, and we had to understand very quickly, within a lap, what the problem was and fix it," Manning told De Telegraaf.

"If we hadn't the clutch would have broken, and Max would have retired," he added.

He explained that Verstappen had to switch off that particular sensor to keep the car running, further discussing the reliability of the current generation of F1 cars.

"People at home might hear [race engineer] Gianpiero Lambiase say something like: 'Fail-16' or 'Fail-20' from time to time. That is something Max has to do on his steering wheel, and in this case, it involved turning off that sensor and it worked," Manning said.

"Today's cars are very reliable, but this is an example that you always have to keep monitoring everything," he said in conclusion.

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"It’s been a while": Max Verstappen reacts to clinching Sprint pole at Austin

Red Bull's performance took a hit mid-season and is currently performing subpar compared to their dominance in the past two seasons. Heading into the US GP, RBR has lost the lead in the Constructors Championship to McLaren. However, Max Verstappen is still sitting at the top of the Drivers' standings.

The team witnessed a ray of hope heading into Austin as Verstappen set himself on pole position for the Sprint race.

"We had a good day," Verstappen said. "Of course, Sprint Qualifying is always very difficult. [With the tyres] you do medium, medium and then a soft. You never really know how much you can push but I’m happy with today. I think all day the car was working quite well, and of course I’m very happy to be first. It’s been a while so very pleased with today."

George Russell held provisional pole position, but Verstappen, 27, despite not being the fastest in any individual sector at COTA, managed to secure pole position by a mere 0.012 seconds, thanks to his overall average speed.