Red Bull vows full review after Verstappen’s Silverstone wing failure

Max Verstappen’s British Grand Prix unravelled with six laps remaining when his Red Bull spun into the gravel at Stowe, ending a race in which he had still been in contention for third place despite a catalogue of problems.

Mekies accepts Verstappen’s anger

Red Bull team boss Laurent Mekies said Verstappen was justified in his reaction after a second successive high-speed incident linked to the car letting him down.

Mekies added that it was also “extremely unpleasant” for Red Bull as a team to see its drivers sent into the gravel, stressing that the squad would act to prevent a repeat. The issue follows Verstappen’s qualifying crash at the Austrian Grand Prix, where a delayed transition out of Straight Line Mode was blamed for the spin.

Red Bull’s rear-wing concept has drawn attention since then. The team has been using a rotating upper-plane design, known as the ‘Macarena wing’, which is believed to offer a performance gain but carries a more complex actuation mechanism. For more on Verstappen’s immediate reaction to the Silverstone incident, read our report on how Verstappen called the Red Bull ‘super dangerous’ after his latest Silverstone spin.

Red Bull says Silverstone fault was different

Mekies insisted Red Bull understood what happened in Austria, but said early analysis pointed to a different failure at Silverstone.

“It doesn’t make it better,” he said. “We are going to review the full area to make sure we leave zero chance for that to happen again.”

Verstappen was unconvinced by the distinction. “A different fault, let’s say, but the same outcome,” he said, explaining that while turning into the corner the rear wing was not fully attaching, costing downforce and pitching the car into a spin. He called the situation “super dangerous” and said he had been lucky twice.

Pitlane-start disagreement

The tension extended to Red Bull’s pre-race decision-making. Verstappen said he wanted to start from the pitlane so the team could make changes, adding: “They were maybe confident to fix it, which I was not.”

Mekies defended the call, arguing that starting from the pitlane would likely have taken Verstappen out of contention for third. He accepted, however, that the driver may have felt differently from inside the car.

For Red Bull, the message is now unavoidable: performance upside means little if Verstappen cannot trust the car through Formula 1’s fastest corners.