Red Bull boss reacts to Max Verstappen unhappiness in ‘let down’ admission

Red Bull team principal said Max Verstappen was “right not to be happy” and that the driver has been “let down” by the RB22.

Verstappen lost out on a podium at Silverstone after his rear end gave way going into Stowe and he became beached in the gravel.

Verstappen right to be unhappy says Mekies

When a driver of Verstappen’s calibre loses it through the corner, it is fair to assume it was a car issue rather than a mistake of the driver and that proved to be correct with the rear wing of the RB22 failing to fully close on approach to the high-speed corner.

It was a similar incident to his qualifying crash in Austria and prompted Verstappen to say he was “fed up” with the misbehaving car.

“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.

“I was lucky in Austria, I was lucky here, but that’s why you get really fed up with it.”

Asked directly about his driver’s unhappiness, Mekies who is approaching a year in the job, said Verstappen had every right to be.

“He’s right not to be happy,” he said. “It is very unpleasant for drivers to be let down by the car in the high-speed corners in two consecutive races.

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“It is also extremely unpleasant for us as a group to send our drivers to the gravel trap, so he’s right to be unhappy.

“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 fail to do that today, and we take that as seriously as one can do, and therefore the minimum that Max can feel today is being unhappy.”

Mekies did though say that Red Bull understands what caused the failure, even if he refused to elaborate on it, but said they would leave “zero chance” for it to happen a third time.

“I’m not going to go into the details, because I don’t think it will be right, but we understand the failure.

“From the early analysis today, we have suffered a different type of failure. It doesn’t make it better, but it is clear that in front of the succession of events, whether or not the failure is different doesn’t really matter.

“We are going to review the full area to make sure we leave zero chance for that to happen again.”

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