Red Bull face F1 cost-cap issues after Max Verstappen mistake at Silverstone

Follow us on Google Discover

Max Verstappen hardly faltered during the 2023 F1 season. So great was Red Bull’s margin of superiority over their competitors that he could afford to exercise caution.

Verstappen cruised to a record-breaking 19 victories from 22 races last season. But this year, rival teams, most notably McLaren, have closed up.

This has forced the Dutchman to push harder, and he’s made some uncharacteristic blunders. In Miami, he sustained minor underbody damage when he went off-track as eventual winner Lando Norris put him under pressure on an alternate strategy.

A couple of races later, he lightly hit the wall in qualifying for the Monaco GP, where he and Red Bull struggled to sixth place. And then at Silverstone last weekend, he went off in Q1.

It was effectively the same mistake teammate Sergio Perez had made at Copse, but Verstappen maintained enough momentum to keep going, while the Mexican found himself beached in the gravel. The world champion went on to qualify fourth.

That was a respectable result given the damage to the floor after a rough ride. Red Bull changed it for the race, where Verstappen climbed to second behind Lewis Hamilton.

Max Verstappen Copse error increases cost-cap strain on Red Bull

Red Bull had introduced a new floor onto their car for the British GP as they tried to re-establish an advantage at the front. But Christian Horner admits they won’t be able to repair the one that Verstappen damaged.

“The floor was completely written off,” he said after the race. “It was a real mess. It was a minor miracle that the mechanics were able to make anything of it.”

According to formule1.nl, this could spell trouble for the Milton Keynes outfit on the cost-cap front. Every team is limited in what they can spend over the course of a season, with penalties in place for those who exceed their allocation.

This is why Verstappen’s mishap could be ‘costly’. Red Bull will have to build another floor to ensure the 27-year-old has a spare for the next race in Hungary.

The report points out that the team will need ‘every penny’ this year to try and fend off the chasing pack. McLaren have been closing the gap in the constructors’ championship in recent races.

Sergio Perez has already racked up huge Red Bull repair bill

This was the second weekend in succession that Verstappen had damaged his car. He was also involved in an incident with Norris at the end of the Austrian GP that earned him a 10-second penalty.

But perhaps the bigger issue is that the team have already spent so much on fixing Sergio Perez’s challenger. It emerged after the Canadian GP that Perez had amassed £2.3m in repair costs, more than any other driver on the grid.

In the Mexican’s defence, few would have blamed him for his tangle with Kevin Magnussen at the start of the race in Monaco, one that left debris from the RB20 scattered all over the track. But it isn’t the only error he’s made, and it’s one of the perils of slipping back into the midfield.

Fortunately, Red Bull avoided any more shunts in the treacherous wet conditions on Sunday. Helmut Marko was surprised that Verstappen struggled in the rain, which is ‘normally his strength’, but he still managed to salvage second place and extend his championship lead to 84 points.