Red Bull: Verstappen 'right to be unhappy' after 'dangerous' British GP retirement
Photo: Race Pictures
20:48, 05 Jul
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Henry Eccles is a freelance Formula 1 journalist for GPblog, covering breaking news, live race blogs, and features across the F1 calendar. Since joining in 2026, he has produced high-volume reporting on the sport’s biggest stories, alongside feature pieces including analysis and historical content.
Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies has said Max Verstappen is "right to be unhappy" after the cause of his British GP crash was revealed by the Dutchman. Verstappen was on course for a podium at Silverstone before he spun on Lap 48 at Stowe.
Verstappen suffered a similar accident at Austrian GP Qualifying last week, with the four-time world champion confirming it was a similar issue - that of his rear wing not fully reattaching - that was the cause of the Silverstone crash on Sunday.
Verstappen told media, including GPblog: "Yeah like Austria but a different fault but lets say it had the same outcome so again, while turning into the corner, the rear wing is not fully attaching and you lose a lot of downforce with that - so spin off the track."
The Red Bull driver later added: "Well at that point it's super dangerous because you can really hurt yourself two times. I was lucky in Austria, I was lucky here but that's why you get really fed up with it."
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Mekies: Verstappen right to be unhappy after British GP crash
Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
Reacting to Verstappen's comments, Mekies said his driver was right to have his concerns, adding it has been "unpleasant" for the team to "send' one of their drivers into the gravel once again.
Mekies told GPblog and others: "Look, he's right not to be happy. It is very unusual. It is very unpleasant for drivers to be let down by the car in high speed corners in two consecutive races, let it be for two different reasons.
"And it is in a much slower scale, also extremely unpleasant for us as a group to send our drivers to the gravel trap. So he's right to be unhappy. I have no doubt that as a team we put in place what is necessary for that not to happen again, even if we failed to do that today, and we take that as seriously as one can do."
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Asked more specifically on the causes of Verstappen's accidents at Spielberg and Silverstone, Mekies said: "So, we certainly understand what happened in the Red Bull Ring. I'm not going to go into the details because I don't think it would be right, but we understand the failure, yes.
"And yes, from the early analysis of today, we have suffered a different type of failure. It doesn't make it better, but it is clear that in front of the successions of events, whether or not the failure is different doesn't really matter. We are going to review the full area to make sure we leave zero chance for that."
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|---|---|---|---|
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