Max Verstappen tells Red Bull they made his car ‘undriveable’ with critical set-up error in unheard radio message

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Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen won’t remember the 2025 British Grand Prix too fondly.

Max Verstappen has only previously won the British Grand Prix once, during his completely dominant 2023 campaign.

It’s a race that’s been dominated by Lewis Hamilton in the modern era, but neither driver could find their way onto the podium on this occasion.

Verstappen miraculously put his Red Bull on pole position at Silverstone, matching Sebastian Vettel’s pole record for Christian Horner’s team.

The four-time world champion held onto the lead ahead of a charging Oscar Piastri during the opening laps, but it quickly became clear he wasn’t going to be able to win the race in Silverstone’s changing conditions.

Silverstone exposed an issue with Verstappen’s Red Bull, and one set-up decision they made before qualifying left him with an undriveable car.

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Max Verstappen moans about having ‘too much front wing’ in unheard British Grand Prix radio message

Red Bull decided that the best way to go into qualifying was with the lowest downforce set-up possible.

It paid off over one lap, but once Verstappen discovered that the weather forecast was getting worse and worse for Sunday’s race, he realised he was in trouble.

Verstappen was nearly caught out by Piastri under the safety car, but spun before the race restarted, ending his chances of finishing on the podium.

It meant Verstappen could congratulate Nico Hulkenberg for his first Formula 1 podium, gained at his expense, as he eventually finished fifth.

The Dutchman made his feelings clear on the team radio, stating at one point: “This car is just undriveable, f—. I have way too much front wing!”

“I just have no rear downforce,” he said in another message, and continued: “I can’t even stay with them. I’m so slow.”

As he crossed the finish line, Verstappen simply said: “That was really tough, really difficult. But, uh, yeah..

“Yesterday it was alright, but today was just.. really difficult.”

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Christian Horner coming under pressure after another disappointing Max Verstappen result

It’s been evident for some time that the success of Red Bull relies fully on Verstappen.

If Red Bull had only earned the points from the other side of the garage this season, they would be rooted to the bottom of the constructors’ championship.

Yuki Tsunoda is fighting to save his race seat, but team principal Horner might soon be in a similar boat.

It’s been suggested that Horner is coming under pressure at Red Bull as Verstappen’s car seems to be getting less and less competitive.

He had to use an extreme set-up to gain pole position, but it left him completely exposed during the race.

Speaking after the race, Verstappen said: “Today wasn’t great. We didn’t think it was going to be so wet today; the weather forecast overnight changed, and it was not in our favour, so it was really difficult with the rear wing that we had today.

“Every time we were low on downforce and couldn’t balance it out in the high and low speeds, with the tools that we had.

“Of course, I had the spin, and we lost a lot of positions at the restart. I don’t really know what happened as I tried to go on the throttle, but we recovered it as much as we could to get to P5.

“Even after that happened, I continued, and the car had no pace, which wasn’t great.”