F1 boss Laurent Mekies admits situation at Red Bull is 'very unpleasant' as Verstappen fumes

Max Verstappen

Laurent Mekies admits situation at Red Bull is 'very unpleasant'

Max Verstappen's long-term future at Red Bull is up in the air

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Tuesday 7 July 2026 10:57

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Red Bull F1 boss Laurent Mekies has said that the situation regarding Max Verstappen's DNF at the British Grand Prix was 'very unpleasant'.

Verstappen had been complaining about the setup on his RB22 for the majority of the weekend, and ahead of the main race on Sunday, he revealed that he had been involved in a disagreement with his team.

Verstappen wanted to change up his car and start from the pit lane, rather than keep the same setup and start in seventh, where he had qualified behind team-mate Isack Hadjar.

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However, for the majority of the British Grand Prix, it looked as though team - and not driver - were right, with Verstappen making use of his grid position and the chaos around him to be running up in third.

The weekend went from bad to worse for Verstappen, though, suffering a snap of oversteer heading into Stowe corner and spinning off in the gravel, coming to a halt just next to the Landostand.

That was on lap 48, and was just when he was trying to chase down Lewis Hamilton for second place.

It was Verstappen's third DNF of the season and, after the race, he suggested that it was a similar failure to what caused a big crash for him during Austrian GP qualifying, when the rear wing did not shut fully heading into a high-speed corner.

Verstappen said after his latest incident that it was becoming 'dangerous' to drive his RB22, and that has led to his boss Mekies describing the 'unpleasant' situation at Red Bull at the moment.

F1 HEADLINES: Verstappen exit clause active as Horner breaks silence

Is Verstappen set to leave Red Bull?

Verstappen is understood to have exit clauses in his Red Bull contract, as confirmed by his manager Raymond Vermeulen, which would allow him to leave the team if certain performance metrics are not met.

One of those is reported to be if he is not in the top two in the drivers' championship by the time of the summer break. That's in two grands prix time, and the four-time champion is currently seventh in the standings.

Mekies has revealed that Verstappen is not happy with his RB22, after the two back-to-back failures in Austria and at the British GP.

"Look, he's right not to be happy," Mekies told media after the race. "It is very unpleasant for drivers to be let down by the car in a high-speed corner in two consecutive races, let it be for two different reasons.

"And it is, in a much lower scale, also extremely unpleasant for us as a group to send our drivers to the gravel trap. So, he is right to be unhappy.

"I have no doubt that as a team that will put in place what is necessary for that not to happen again, even if we failed to do that today. We take that as seriously as one can do."

F1 Red Bull Max Verstappen Laurent Mekies