Max Verstappen’s frustration was on full display at Silverstone during the British Grand Prix weekend. Unlike Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, however, there was no Angelica to chase—only a troublesome Red Bull RB22 that once again let its driver down.
The Dutchman left Silverstone with zero points from Sunday’s race, a result that hurts for several reasons. More than simply missing out on what looked like a secure podium finish, two key factors explain why the reigning world champion was so disappointed.
The first was the lack of competitiveness caused by a setup that never matched his preferences. Verstappen had wanted to make significant changes to the car, even accepting a pit lane start if that meant solving the balance issues that had affected him throughout qualifying.
“Why did things end up like this? You’ll have to ask the team,” Max Verstappen said. “I would have preferred to start from the pit lane because I knew I’d have the same problems in the race. I told them, ‘We’ll see exactly the same thing on Sunday.’ And that’s exactly what happened.”
“Up until the accident, I had actually been lucky in the race. Everything happened around me. Lewis got a penalty, George had a slow puncture, and Kimi had a problem with his car. Even if we had finished on the podium, we wouldn’t have deserved it at all. On the hard tyres we were really slow. I don’t know how I managed to keep George Russell and Lewis Hamilton behind me for so many laps. The balance was terrible all weekend, and I didn’t even have the top speed compared to someone like Isack Hadjar. The race unfolded exactly as I expected.”
Another rear wing failure ends Verstappen’s race
The second and most significant issue was another rear wing failure, which sent Verstappen off the track on lap 48 of the 52-lap British Grand Prix.
Approaching the braking zone for Stowe Corner, Verstappen suddenly lost the rear of the RB22—almost exactly as had happened one week earlier in Austria—and slid off into the gravel. Forced to retire, the four-time world champion angrily threw his steering wheel aside before walking away from the car.
Once back in the garage and out of his race suit, Verstappen pointed directly at the rear wing problem. Just like at the Red Bull Ring, the movable rear wing appeared not to have closed correctly, causing a sudden loss of downforce precisely when he needed maximum grip through one of Silverstone’s fastest corners.
“It was just like Austria,” Verstappen explained. “The cause was different, but the result was exactly the same. When I turn into the corner, the rear wing isn’t fully closed and you lose a huge amount of downforce. There’s nothing you can do except go off the track.” Going off at that corner is very dangerous because you can really get hurt. It’s happened twice now. I was lucky in Austria and I was lucky again here. That’s why I’m really fed up with all of this.”
“I’d have to be an incredibly zen person to stay optimistic after what’s happened again this weekend. That’s simply how I feel. I need a few days to reset before trying again.”
Asked whether he planned to meet with Red Bull management before the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps to discuss the issue, Max Verstappen gave a blunt reply: “To be honest, I don’t want anything to do with it for a while.”
Red Bull admits responsibility
Team principal Laurent Mekies fully backed Verstappen’s assessment, confirming that the rear wing failure was responsible for the accident at Stowe.
Although this was the second rear wing issue in consecutive races, Mekies stressed that the Silverstone failure had a different root cause from the one seen in Austria.
“We had a problem with the rear wing on Max’s car, and that’s why he went off the track. The responsibility is ours,” Mekies admitted.
“It’s a real shame because at that stage of the race he was particularly quick. We had made a significant step forward compared to Saturday, and he was in a position to fight for the podium while running third. Unfortunately, this problem occurred.”
“On one hand, this kind of reliability failure is simply unacceptable. On the other, it’s even worse when you send your driver into the gravel because of it. We apologise to Max. We’ll bring the car back, investigate thoroughly and understand exactly what happened. From the live data it was immediately clear that something had failed at the rear of the car, leaving him with absolutely no chance of saving it.”
Mekies also confirmed that the Silverstone failure was mechanically different from the one experienced at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Ironically, that is exactly what makes Verstappen even more frustrated. At this stage, the RB22’s rear wing simply cannot be considered reliable enough to give him confidence in the car. And future circuits may not offer the generous run-off areas that prevented a much more serious accident at Silverstone.
“We know exactly what happened in Austria,” Mekies continued. “I won’t go into the technical details because I don’t think it’s appropriate, but we fully understood the cause of that failure. Based on our first analysis today, it appears we’ve encountered a different type of failure.”
“That doesn’t make the situation any better. Whether the failure was caused by the same issue or not changes very little from the driver’s perspective. We’ll investigate the entire system thoroughly to eliminate every possible scenario that could allow this to happen again.”
“We’ll do everything necessary to ensure safety comes first. We’ve been racing with this rear wing concept for several races now, I believe since the Miami Grand Prix. So we’ve already built up quite a lot of mileage with this specification.”
“It’s still too early to determine whether the issue is related to the overall design concept or something else entirely. But one thing is certain: we’ll leave no stone unturned and evaluate every possible solution.”
At a time when all the major opportunities in the driver market appear to have disappeared, Verstappen must also deal with a significant reliability concern on the RB22. It is a paradoxical situation for arguably Formula 1’s strongest driver, who knows there is no obvious escape route over the next two seasons other than hoping Red Bull delivers a more reliable and competitive car.
For now, he can only hope the engineers in Milton Keynes solve a problem that, thanks largely to luck, has not yet resulted in something far more serious. Otherwise, Formula 1 fans should expect to see an angry Max Verstappen again before long.
Leave a Reply