Max Verstappen says missing a “bi♒g piece” of the floor on his Red Bull Formula 1 car cost him a stronger result at the United States Grand Prix.

The Dutchman qualified third on the Austin grid and narrowly missed out on a second-place finish after yellow flags curtailed his late attack on♑ Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes, with Verstappen ultimately completing the podium in third spot.

Ver🎃stappen, who was pleased with Red Bull’s performance throughout the US Grand Prix weekend, reckons the damage he suffered cost him “a lot of lap time” during the 56-lap race.

“Overall, we had a really good rဣace,” Verstappen explained. “I was just struggling with some weird oversteer in the car.

“Initially, they said it was my front wing, which had a little bit of damage but after the ra♔ce I looked at the car and I was 𒉰missing a big piece of my floor in front of the rear tyre, so that definitely cost me a lot of lap time.

“I don’t know when it happened but already quite quickly into the race I had this weird behaviour from the 𝕴car, which I had not felt before.

“So that’s a bit unfortunate and othe🍬rwise I think we could have been stronger. But still, to be on the podium here after a very positive weekend in general I think was a really good achievement for us.”

Red Bull♚ team principal Christian Horner said the unfortunate damage helped sway the team’s decision t𒊎o carry out a two-stop strategy, with Verstappen pitting first out of the top three.

“It was a really strong drive by Max,” Horner added. “He got a good start and then he picked up some front wing damage on the first lap so we elected to go for a twoꦦ stop strategy versus Lewis’ one stop.

“Max was able to keep Bottas in sight throughout the threꩵe stints and closed to within a second of Hamilton towards the end of the race.

“An unlucky yellow flag ov🃏er the last couple of laps prevented the chance of a Max overtake but nonetheless P3 here in Austin has been t🗹he end to a very strong weekend.”