Red Bull accepts full responsibility for Max Verstappen’s Austrian GP qualifying crash. Red Bull blames technical issue for Max Verstappen's qualifying accident.

F1 | Red Bull: “Verstappen made no mistake, the crash was our responsibility”

Red Bull has ruled out any blame on Max Verstappen for the crash that ended his final Q3 run during qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix. After analysing the data gathered from the RB21, team principal Laurent Mekies explained that the four-time world champion suffered a sudden loss of rear aerodynamic downforce, leaving him with no chance of keeping the car under control through Turn 9.

“The nature of the accident was quite unusual,” Laurent Mekies explained. “We lost aerodynamic downforce at the rear of the car, and Max had absolutely no chance of keeping it on the track. As a team, we take full responsibility for what happened and we apologise to him. The most important thing is that Max is okay. He completed an excellent first run in Q3, and on the final set of tyres he was extremely quick right up until the moment he lost control of the car.”

Red Bull investigates possible rear wing issue

Laurent Mekies did not reveal the exact cause of the problem, but one of the leading theories is that the issue may have involved the rear wing. Immediately after hitting the barriers, Max Verstappen told his race engineer, Giampiero Lambiase, over the team radio that he had suddenly felt the car become unstable.

The response from the pit wall came immediately: “I’ll check the rear wing, maybe there was a delay,” referring to the rear wing closing after the end of the straight-line mode activation zone.

However, footage of the RB21 at the moment of impact does not reveal any obvious abnormalities. The rear wing appears to be fully closed, leaving the precise cause of the sudden loss of downforce still under investigation.

“At Turn 9, I suddenly lost a lot of rear grip and lost control of the car at high speed,” Max Verstappen explained after the session. “I experienced a drop in aerodynamic downforce caused by something at the rear of the car, and from that point on, the situation was completely out of my control.”

Risky tyre strategy still delivered encouraging signs

Laurent Mekies also explained the strategic decision that had already exposed Max Verstappen to additional risk during Q2, where he progressed with the tenth-fastest time and just 0.040 seconds in hand over the elimination zone.

“Not sending Max out for a second run in Q2 was certainly a risky decision,” he admitted. “But we knew we had to take some risks after deciding to tackle qualifying with only three sets of new Soft tyres, giving ourselves more strategic options for the race.”

Despite the disappointing conclusion to qualifying, Red Bull still viewed Saturday as a positive step from a technical perspective. After a difficult Friday, the upgraded RB21 showed encouraging signs throughout the day.

“Whenever you arrive at the circuit with such a significant upgrade package, it’s never simply a matter of plug-and-play,” Laurent Mekies concluded. “The real challenge is understanding how the new package works, identifying its ideal operating window and learning how to extract its full potential over the course of the weekend. We’re still learning, but today was a very encouraging first step. The improvement in performance confirmed the progress delivered by the new components introduced on the car.”