Max Verstappen’s Silverstone nightmare exposed Red Bull’s sacrifice that is now holding them back

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Max Verstappen spun out of the 2026 British Grand Prix at Silverstone last Sunday and blamed the rear wing on his Red Bull RB22 after a “dangerous” crash finished his race.

The four-time F1 champion was left irate when he lost control of his car at Stowe and ended up in the gravel in front of the 16,000 fans in the Lando Norris grandstand. Cheers even rang around Silverstone as the big screens cut to the dust starting to settle on Verstappen’s car.

Verstappen was running in a comfortable podium position before he spun out on Lap 48 out of 52 during the British GP. Ferrari duo Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were both out of reach, but Mercedes star George Russell had no reply to Verstappen’s pace for the rostrum.

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Max Verstappen’s Silverstone spin exposed how Red Bull’s rear wing sacrifices the RB22’s airflow

The British GP had already been a very frustrating weekend for Verstappen before his spin in Sunday’s race. Verstappen was never comfortable with Red Bull’s car at Silverstone and even wanted to start from the pit lane to change his set-up in parc ferme, after only qualifying P7.

READ MORE: Leclerc wins the 2026 British GP under the safety car after Verstappen’s crash

Crashing out of a possible podium just infuriated Verstappen further, leading the 28-year-old to vent over Red Bull’s radio: “F— this car. Unbelievable. F— this.” And as Verstappen’s crash in qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix had also been due to a fault stopping Red Bull’s rear wing from resetting correctly after using straight mode, he just doubled down after the race.

“I saw the analysis,” Verstappen told Sky Sports. “It looks like it closes but it doesn’t. It closes but it’s just [not all the way], and you lose a lot of rear downforce.

“And that’s why the car just spins off the track. When it happens one time, that can happen – faults happen. Two times? It’s getting very dangerous for me, because you can really hurt yourself at these high-speed corners when it happens.”

Verstappen’s spin in the British GP even exposed deeper flaws with Red Bull’s rear wing than the open element not closing completely. Motorsport.com claims their design causes issues with how the airflow reattaches when Verstappen and Isack Hadjar leave straight-line mode.

Red Bull know their ‘considerably more convoluted’ rear wing design forces them to sacrifice the way that the airflow behaves in the rotation phase. Their mechanism to rotate the upper flap by 180°, rather than pulling or pushing the flap, is also ‘considerably more complicated’.

Now, Red Bull are having to investigate thoroughly why Verstappen experienced a similar yet different issue during qualifying for the Austrian GP and also during the British GP. It remains to be seen whether Red Bull can now find a solution by the Belgian Grand Prix on July 17-19.

Gary Anderson doubts Red Bull have a ‘fundamental’ problem with their Macarena rear wing

Former Jordan F1 technical director Gary Anderson does not think Red Bull’s rear wing has a “fundamental” problem causing Verstappen’s spins, however. Anderson suspects that even a minor difference in wind speed or a bit of turbulence from another car can unsettle the car.

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What made Verstappen’s spin out of P3 in the British GP, and his earlier spin into the barrier during qualifying for the Austrian GP, “more extreme” was the speed at which he was going when the issue arose. The run to Stowe is one of the fastest areas on the Silverstone circuit.

Anderson has told The Telegraph: “If the airflow does not reattach instantaneously – even if there is a delay of 0.002 sec – the driver will not have enough downforce to take the corner in the expected way, as the rear end steps out and they end up in the gravel.

“There probably is not anything fundamentally wrong with the Red Bull rear wing and how it operates. A crosswind or a bit of turbulence can mean the air does not reattach immediately.

“Or there could be some small inconsistency in the surface of the wing. Maybe a sponsor’s decal sits fractionally in the wrong place, making a critical difference in the transition.

“Verstappen’s spin was more extreme because of the nature of Turn 15 at Silverstone. Cars come haring down the Hangar Straight towards the end of the lap, enter the corner at 190mph and leave the 90-degree right-hander at 130mph. It is a part of the track where these wings are working particularly hard.

“Another explanation is that Red Bull could be pushing the limits of airflow – not just on the rear wing but across the car more generally – and that could be causing the unpredictable performance in corners.”

It remains to be seen what Red Bull do now in response to Verstappen having back-to-back spins in Austria and England. The wider implications are also yet to play out, as Verstappen will have from August to October to activate his release clause as he is now certain to rank outside the top two in the championship at the summer break owing to his 78-point deficit.