Max Verstappen slams "super-dangerous" Red Bull wing after "lucky" Silverstone escape

Max Verstappen has labelled Red Bull's rear wing as "super-dangerous" after he suffered a failure for the second Formula 1 weekend running at the British Grand Prix.

The four-time champion had been critical of his Red Bull throughout the Silverstone weekend, but things came to a head after he crashed out of third place with only a handful of laps remaining, as a problem with his rear wing saw him spear off into the gravel at Stowe, following the high-speed Hanger Straight.

It was the second problem with Red Bull's 'Macarena' wing in as many weekends, after Verstappen also blamed the device for his crash in qualifying at the Red Bull Ring. 

“Yeah, like Austria, but a different fault that’s ended up with the same outcome," said Verstappen when asked by Crash.net if the rear wing had been to blame. 

"So again, while turning into the corner, the rear wing is not fully attaching, and you lose a lot of downforce for that. You just spin off the track.”

He added: “At this point, it’s super dangerous, because I could have really hurt myself two times. I was lucky in Austria; I was lucky here. But that’s why you get really fed up with it.”

Despite his complaints of a lack of performance, Verstappen had been in the top three at the time of his crash, and was looking strong for what had appeared across most of the weekend to be an unlikely podium. 

However, he was acutely aware that this result would not have been earned on pace, with George Russell and Kimi Antonelli suffering problems, and Lewis Hamilton held back by a five-second penalty for a false start. 

“[I was] lucky, of course, with everything that happened around me," said Verstappen. "With the penalty for Lewis, a slow puncture for George, Kimi’s problem. So, even if we would have finished on the podium, you take it, but it’s not deserved at all, because on the hard tyres, we were really slow. 

“I don’t know how I kept George and Lewis behind for so long.

“The whole weekend I had a terrible balance, no top speed compared to the other car as well in the garage. And then, the race was exactly the same, which I already predicted.”

Team boss Laurent Mekies stated in Austria that the upgrade package introduced there would play a significant role in Verstappen's decision whether or not to remain with Red Bull into 2027. 

Pressed on this topic, Verstappen said: “I'm not going to say anything about that. It's not fair to say anything about that right now.”