Why Red Bull denied Max Verstappen’s request at British Grand Prix

Red Bull rejected Max Verstappen’s request to overhaul his RB22 before the British Grand Prix, believing a pit lane start offered less chance of a strong result than persevering with an imperfect car.

Verstappen’s race ended in the gravel at Stowe, leaving the four-time world champion 78 points behind the second place that Red Bull need him to be for him not to be able to activate his escape clause.

Red Bull explain Max Verstappen pit lane start decision

Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trust

Verstappen wasn’t happy with his Red Bull during Saturday’s qualifying for the British Grand Prix.

He not only qualified in seventh place, almost eight-tenths down on pole-sitter Kimi Antonelli, but he was also beaten by his teammate Isack Hadjar. It was the first time that a teammate had outqualified Verstappen at the Silverstone circuit.

“What a disaster. Unbelievable,” Verstappen fumed over the radio.

The four-time world champion later revealed that he wanted Red Bull to make changes to his RB22, even though that would mean a pit lane start after breaking parc ferme conditions.

“If we leave the car the same, there is little point in racing,” he told De Telegraaf.

“I prefer to change everything, because if we don’t do anything, we will continue to drive around this place. Or we will fall back one place.”

Red Bull denied his request, a decision that the 28-year-old didn’t agree with.

Go deeper: Max Verstappen’s Red Bull contract

F1 driver contracts: What is the contract status of every driver on the F1 2026 grid?

F1 2026 driver salaries: Who are the highest-paid drivers on the grid?

Speaking to Sky Italia on his way to the grid, he told the broadcaster to “ask the team why, as I would have done it differently”.

Clawing his way to fifth place in the Grand Prix, Verstappen complained about his energy deployment, his RB22 understeering and being unbalanced, and his “s**t” downshifts.

“We should have just done what I said yesterday,” he told his race engineer GianPiero Lambiase: “I would have easily got to this place.”

Alas, the place it ended was in the gravel at Stowe as Verstappen spun out of the race on Lap 48.

Verstappen cut a frustrated figure when he spoke with the media, including PlanetF1.com, after the Grand Prix.

Asked if he felt the team was not listening to him and what was going on, he replied: “I don’t know. I mean, I’m trying my best with everything. That’s the only thing that I can do.”

Mekies has defended Red Bull’s decision, adamant that even if the team had changed Verstappen’s car, he would not have been fighting for a podium finish.

He does, however, accept that Verstappen may have felt differently about the situation.

“After qualifying, it was clear we were not very happy with the balance of the car, to say the least, and changing the set-up of the car would simply mean starting from the pit lane,” Mekies told PlanetF1.com and other accredited media at Silverstone.

“We knew it wasn’t going to be pleasant to go with a very imperfect balance into the race.

“We still felt that it would give us a better result than starting from the pit lane with perhaps something better.

“Now it’s something we have discussed with Max, and I completely accept that he may have a different feeling, and he’s driving the car, so that’s what it is. But at the end of the day, there were important learnings to his point.

“The car probably felt similar to what he had in qualifying, so we hit the limitations that we knew we had, and I’m not completely sure that we could have been P3 on the road before the failure happened if we had started from the pit lane.”

Verstappen, who PlanetF1.com understands is in negotiations with McLaren about a move away from Red Bull, has scored just 76 points this season and is 103 behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli.

More importantly, he is 78 points behind second-placed George Russell, with it being widely reported that he can trigger the exit clause in his contract if he’s third or lower at the summer break.

Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.

You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!

Read next: ‘Horrendous’ – Untelevised Max Verstappen team radio after troubled British GP