Red Bull’s Max Verstappen almost didn’t start at the Hungarian Grand Prix. 20 minutes before the start of the race, Verstappen crashed into the barriers at turn 12 and his RB16 suffered some serious damage in the process.

It almost seemed like Max’s race was over before it had even started. However, enter Red Bull mechanics. They produced nothing short of a miracle to get Verstappen’s car ready for the race, which ended in Verstappen finishing P2.

The magic produced by the Red Bull mechanics, deservedly, got high praise from the Dutch driver. Verstappen was astonished as to how quickly they managed to repair his car and get it race-ready in such a brief window.

Max Verstappen admits to ‘crazy’ job done by Red Bull mechanics to save his race

In the post-race interview, Verstappen said, “The track rod was broken, I think. The pull rod was (also) broken, so not the easiest things to quickly change. But they did an amazing job to do that.

“(In)12 minutes they managed to repair that, which is crazy. I was sitting in the car, I could see the mechanics screaming at each other, like ten seconds, five seconds, put the wheel on, everything.

“Don’t know if final piece of tape on the suspension to make sure it was sticking. I put my thumbs up and they were like yeah, yeah, it’s fixed, so I said OK, well then here we go, let us see.

“Doing the formation laps, I was checking the wheels, I was like this feels alright, yep. And during the race, nothing happened, nothing weird happens, so it was fully repaired. So yeah, crazy.”

Even Mercedes driver and race winner Lewis Hamilton was surprised to hear how quickly the mechanics repaired the damaged RB16. He said in astonishment, “They did that in 12 minutes?!”

Verstappen put in an inspired performance as he crossed the finish line in second place after starting in P7. During the last couple of laps, Max would have been sweating bullets, as Valtteri Bottas was gaining in on him, big time.

But luckily for him, he managed to come home seven-tenths of a second ahead of Bottas.