Red Bull backs Verstappen's anger after rear wing failure ends British GP in 'super dangerous' crash

Max Verstappen was robbed of a podium finish at the British Grand Prix on Sunday when a rear wing failure sent his Red Bull spinning into the gravel at Stowe corner with six laps remaining, the latest in a series of aerodynamic incidents to hit the world champion.

Verstappen had been fighting for third place despite managing poor handling balance, electrical deployment problems and gearbox issues throughout the race at Silverstone. The retirement compounded his frustration at a team that had also declined to change his engine ahead of the race, despite him raising serious concerns about it after qualifying on Saturday.

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies offered a frank acknowledgement of Verstappen’s anger. “Look, he’s right not to be happy,” Mekies said. “It is very unpleasant for drivers to be let down by the car in the high-speed corners in two consecutive races, albeit 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’s right to be unhappy.”

Mekies added: “I have no doubt that as a team we will 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.”

The incident is the second successive race weekend in which Verstappen’s rear wing has been implicated in a high-speed crash. At the Austrian Grand Prix the previous weekend, a delayed transition out of Straight Line Mode was blamed for inducing a spin during qualifying at the Red Bull Ring.

At the heart of the issue is Red Bull’s so-called ‘Macarena wing’, introduced at the Miami Grand Prix. Unlike conventional active aerodynamic systems — introduced this season to reduce the demand on engines’ limited electrical energy reserves — the Macarena wing rotates its entire top plane by roughly 180 degrees rather than adjusting the angle of attack. The design is understood to offer a meaningful performance advantage, but its actuation mechanism is considerably more complex, and the airflow around the wing during its rotational phase is more turbulent.

The fundamental aerodynamic challenge is that air does not instantly reattach to wing surfaces when active aero is disengaged at the end of a Straight Line Mode zone. That creates a transient period of instability as the downforce balance and tyre loadings shift — a window of vulnerability that has now contributed to two separate incidents for Verstappen.

Mekies confirmed the team understands the root cause of the Austrian failure, though he declined to go into technical specifics. Whether Red Bull can resolve the issue before the next round remains to be seen, with Verstappen’s championship position adding urgency to finding a fix.