Max Verstappen: What next for Red Bull driver at Belgian Grand Prix after ‘disgusting’ comments at Silverstone? | F1 News

“At the moment, I’m really just looking forward to going home and not thinking about Formula 1.”

The 2026 British Grand Prix was not the first, and will not prove to be the last, disappointing race of Max Verstappen’s Formula 1 career but the Red Bull driver left Silverstone just over a week ago and appeared almost disgusted with how that particular weekend unfolded.

His mood was naturally not helped by the fact that his race ended where no driver would ever want it – on a gravel pit beach – after a rear Dutch error sent the Dutchman’s RB22 car off the road with six laps to go while racing through a high-speed stoke in third place.

Such failure hit his car for the second time in nine days after Verstappen was also knocked off the pace at the end of qualifying in Austria.

The failure at Silverstone clearly told Verstappen that the situation was getting dangerous for him, saying: “I was lucky in Austria, I was lucky here, but that’s why you get really upset about it.”

Although Red Bull later apologized to their four-time world champion driver and said they would work to ensure the wing problem did not reoccur, Verstappen had already expressed displeasure with the car’s handling and top speed at Silverstone during another challenging weekend for the former champions in the 2026 season.

He publicly disagreed with the team’s decision not to start in the pit lane after qualifying difficulties left him seventh on the grid and expecting a similarly challenging race with the same engine and set-up.

That comes amid heightened uncertainty over exactly where the Dutchman will drive after the second weekend of running, with speculation in the media about links to McLaren in driver-market discussions.

Will Austria or Silverstone prove the trend?

Red Bull’s struggles at Silverstone were in stark contrast to their 2026 season turning the corner just days earlier at their own Red Bull Ring in Austria.

Buoyed by a major aerodynamic upgrade to the RB22 that helped resolve season-long weight issues with the car, Verstappen felt he was in the mix for second in qualifying before a premature finish in Q3 and then enjoyed a surprisingly competitive race to finish on the tail of George Russell, finishing second in the Merc20.

Verstappen later said it was “the first time, I think, in a race where I felt really competitive” this season since the sport’s new chassis and power unit regulations were introduced.

But then came Silverstone.

Although his British Grand Prix weekend also started promisingly enough with third place on the sprint grid, a slide from sixth in the 17-lap dash was a sign of things to come.

Verstappen was actually running third in the grand prix when he made a dramatic exit at Stow inside the final 10 laps, but the high position didn’t kid him at the time. He said he was “lucky” to be so high due to the misfortune of others and that if he had finished where he was “it would have been a podium we didn’t deserve at speed”.

Speaking after the race, Red Bull team principal Laurent Mackies said he thought Verstappen’s frustration with the RB22 came from one area in particular.

“Max is unhappy with the balance of the car,” Mekis said. “It’s a reality.

“This means that he thinks that the inherent performance of the car can produce better results if we can solve our balance constraints.”

After doing Austria-Britain back-to-backs, the bigger gap before Spa arrives at a good time for Red Bull that will allow their engineers to go through the data on their Austria upgrade package and see what worked, what could be improved and how they can now optimize the RB22 for a more power-hungry track, where power deployment could once again be a challenge.

Verstappen was seen in a Red Bull social media video last Wednesday, in a jovial mood as he quipped about the British heatwave, no doubt arriving at their Milton Keys factory to explain further to Silverstone and prepare for the final two events in the simulator before F1 breaks for the summer.

He expects all their work behind closed doors since the step up in Belgium.

Will Spa be better for Verstappen and Red Bull?

While next month’s Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort is Verstappen’s official home race, Belgium comes close to that status as the 28-year-old was born in the country and his mother, Sophie Kumppen, is Belgian.

The neighboring countries of Belgium and the Netherlands mean that the ‘Orange Army’ is as prominent in the grandstands and viewing areas around Spa-Francorchamps as outside Zandvoort.

Spa is also one of the tracks where Verstappen has enjoyed the most success, winning three in a row from 2021-2023. The Dutchman famously won from 14th on the grid in 2022, when he took victory in last year’s sprint despite a difficult run of mid-season form for Red Bull.

The chance to challenge again at the front will therefore be particularly welcome by Verstappen and his fans, although the high-speed and aerodynamically demanding nature of F1’s longest track is not what Red Bull would ideally choose for their RB22 car at the moment.

“At tracks where the power constraints are stronger, we seem to be struggling more than the competition,” Mackies admitted after Silverstone.

“In that case, I’m afraid the spa is probably in that category as well, but that doesn’t mean we give up and we turn the page, it just means we have to improve on it sooner or later. It’s about 360 degree improvement, we try to do that every day.

“So we want to take a small step forward this weekend on this type of track I hope for Spa. I believe the team is learning very quickly, it’s still the first year with our PU (power unit), they’re going to get closer to these power-hungry tracks.

“There may be hardware limitations, but I equally know that the team is great at learning fast.

“So I hope we can be in slightly better shape at Spa but from a character point of view it should be similar to (Silverstone) and then hopefully Budapest will give a different picture.”

What does Red Bull’s setback mean for Verstappen’s future?

Red Bull’s struggles for consistency and reliability in the first months of F1’s radical new ruleset come at a delicate time as it is still uncertain whether their star driver will be with them next season.

Verstappen’s contractual status is now well known. Although his Red Bull contract runs until the end of 2028, he has a performance break clause.

The result at Silverstone confirmed he will not be in the drivers’ championship’s top two positions after the Hungarian Grand Prix, the final race before the summer break in August, meaning he can activate a break to leave at the end of the season – if he wants to.

But despite all the speculation in recent weeks, that big question remains largely unanswered – will Verstappen and his management finally want to leave at the end of the season amid the team’s current lack of race-winning form?

Verstappen, who has yet to publicly commit to staying in F1 until 2027, is believed to have until the end of October to tell Red Bull if he wants to leave for next year so he still has plenty of time to consider his options.

His management emerged during the Austrian weekend talking to world champions McLaren. Jack Brown, chief executive of the Woking team, said at Silverstone that those talks had “gone nowhere” and that “I’ve got my two drivers”, both world champion Lando Norris and team-mate Oscar Piastre, under contract for next season.

Piastre manager Mark Weber said this information the racer Speculation last week linking his driver to another team was a work of “fiction”.

So if there really isn’t a place at McLaren, at least for 2027, then, on paper, Verstappen clearly looks short of the non-Red Bull options with current Mercedes and Ferrari drivers also out of contract this year.

Still talking The F1 show Podcast after Silverstone, of Sky Sports F1 Jenson Button said it seemed logical that Verstappen would strongly assess his options.

“I think Red Bull’s Max is really disappointed at the moment,” Button said.

“He’s happy most of the time, but I think he’s very disappointed with the situation. A lot of people he’s worked with for years and won championships have left and gone somewhere else.

“It must be very strange, it must feel a bit lonely for him in that team, everyone is brand new around him, so I think he will look elsewhere, I really do, for next year.”

Red Bull’s performances at Spa next week and then Hungary – two completely different circuits that should highlight their car’s strengths and continuing weaknesses – are unlikely to determine Verstappen’s future by any means, but good progress with the RB22 will undoubtedly help the team’s cause after the public strain at Silverstone.

Formula 1’s summer run continues this weekend with the Belgian Grand Prix at the legendary Spa-Francorchamps, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports now – no contract, cancel anytime