Red Bull explains why they didn't grant Verstappen's request: 'We spoke to him about this'

The four-time world champion was even willing to accept a pit-lane start if they could change everything on the set-up while Red Bull put in a new engine. After qualifying he stated the engine “wasn’t running at all” and it was clear they lacked speed, pointing to his teammate, Isack Hadjar, where things were better sorted on that side of the garage. Verstappen indirectly turned up the pressure and demanded better work from his team.

On Sunday morning, however, GPblog was able to confirm, however, that Red Bull had chosen not to change anything, despite Verstappen wanting them to.

"After qualifying it was clear we were not very happy with the balance of the car to say the least and changing the setup of the car would simply mean starting from the pit lane," Mekies told this website and others.

"Whilst we knew it wasn't going to be pleasant to go with a very imperfect balance into the race, we still felt that it would give us a better result than starting from the pit lane with perhaps something better." the team boss continued.

He says this was discussed with Verstappen: "It's something we have discussed with Max, and I completely accept that he may have a different feeling and he's driving the car. So that's what it is. But in the end of the day, there were important learnings today."

Although Mekies shows understanding, Red Bull did not choose to implement Verstappen’s wishes. It seemed to cause some irritation before the Grand Prix. Speaking to the Italian branch of Sky Sports, Verstappen didn’t want to say anything about the matter and asked the broadcaster to “ask his team, which somehow didn’t want to do it.” A conversation between both parties about that choice took place, but Verstappen clearly disagreed.

As for the result: if Verstappen had started from the pit lane, the chance of scoring zero points was high, and Red Bull ended up with zero anyway because the rear wing failed again. Wouldn’t it have been better to throw everything overboard? “To his [Verstappen's] point, the car probably felt similar to what he had yesterday. So we hit the limitations that we knew we had yesterday," says Mekies.

The Frenchman adds that a podium wasn’t guaranteed if Verstappen had started from the pit lane: "I'm not completely sure that we could have been P3 on the road before the failure happened if we had started on the pit lane."

That statement is of course correct, but they’ve still come away with no points from Verstappen’s effort. Incidents are piling up for the Dutchman. He had already made it clear that P2 in Austria wasn’t enough to be sure they had turned the tide.

For Verstappen, it’s especially frustrating because it’s not the first time this season that he and Red Bull don’t seem to be on the same page. That doesn’t need to spark instant speculation, but it is somewhat notable that Verstappen keeps his team ‘sharp’ by saying it to the media.

In Canada, he was also unhappy with the car’s set-up and had told Red Bull as much. When things then went wrong, he said: “Then they’ll just have to feel it,” referring to Red Bull’s technical team.

The Verstappen who spoke to the media on Saturday and Sunday was clear: for now, he’s had enough. That doesn’t mean he’s quitting immediately, but that he’s currently not enjoying Formula 1. His car isn’t improving enough to consistently score points, podiums, or wins, and the authentic Formula 1 feeling at his favourite tracks has been ruined by the regulations. He’s therefore not looking forward to racing in Belgium, because Spa-Francorchamps will likely be difficult with the battery. How long can Verstappen keep this up?