The Dutchman, who took pole for the race having pipped home favourite Lando Norris at the post, was spotted with a damaged front wing in the pitlane during the red flag period in Q1.
It emerged that on exiting his pit garage, Verstappen had not been able to filter out into the fast lane without making contact with the opposite wall and broke off the left hand side of his front wing.
This prompted blushes as Red Bull wheeled the #1 car back towards the team's pitbox for a quick nose swap, turning around the damage to get him back out into the queue for the restart.
Recapping a frantic Q1, Verstappen explained that it was very difficult to spot the grippy sections of the circuit - and that his broken front wing occurred as he understeered out of the pit garage.
"On that final lap, um, of course I had my little 'incident' in the pits where, where I destroyed my front wing," Verstappen said, referencing a now-infamous clip of his and Charles Leclerc's reaction to a clash during their karting days.
"I had a bit of understeer out of the box, 'too much' rear grip. I had to take a new front wing, but that meant of course, that I was in the back to start that final run.
"And it was quite exciting. I think that out-lap with passing a few cars here and there to get the lap in. Luckily it was all good enough, but that shows that it can also very quickly fall the other way and you are out.
"When I arrived to Turn 15 the first time I just went straight off, I couldn't see [the wet parts]. It was very weird because Turn 15 and 16, they were a bit damp and it was very difficult to see where exactly, you could only really feel it.
"That took a bit of time to really get on top of. But in general, I was just trying to get the laps in, we knew that we had a quick car, so you don't risk it all the way to get through."
Source: Autosport