Verstappen bemoans “bad day” for Red Bull at F1 British GP

Max Verstappen was left bemoaning a “bad day” at the office for the Red Bull Formula 1 squad following Friday practice at the British Grand Prix – as boss Christian Horner promised new “tools” to help keep the Dutchman happy.

With speculation continuing over Verstappen’s future, Horner batted away questions of whether he could lose the reigning world champion to Mercedes from next season.

Verstappen has won the last four drivers’ titles with Red Bull, but the team’s form has suffered this season and it has been well and truly been surpassed by McLaren.

It has become something of the norm for Verstappen to declare his unhappiness with Friday running, only to ramp up as the weekend progresses. At Silverstone, his long-run pace was not far off the championship leading McLaren duo of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.

But, once again, Verstappen was quick to stress he was not pleased with how the car felt around a windy lap of Silverstone.

“For me personally it was quite a bad day,” said Verstappen, who sits third in the drivers’ standings.

“Just no balance in the car, it’s very difficult corner to corner as well, so yeah, quite a poor day I think for us in general.”

When asked if the wind had played a part in the difficulty of the day, Verstappen, who was 10th in FP1 and fifth in FP2, offered a bullish response.

“A lot,” he said. “But that’s of course not an excuse because everyone has to deal with that, right? So it’s not easy, but same for everyone.

“Every weekend is different scenarios, right? Now with the wind around here, it seems like our car seems quite sensitive to it, but in general it’s not been an easy day.

“(There are) maybe a few that we’ll look at, but I think overall, we’re just lacking a bit of performance.”

In the break between Friday’s practice sessions, Horner faced the media in a press conference and was grilled over the rumours of Verstappen signing for Mercedes from 2026 onwards.

Horner claimed he was feeling “comfortable” about the situation, but also refused to completely commit to having Verstappen in a Red Bull for 2026.

Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

He also told Sky Sports that the team needs to provide the ‘necessary tools’ to keep Red Bull fighting for success.

“Of course you’re always looking for it to evolve and improve and you can see how fast moving the pace of this business is,” Horner said.

“We’re investing in our tools, we have a new wind tunnel coming online, within the next 12 months that will be completed, we have other tools and of course you’re always strengthening and tuning your organisation.

“We’ve got great strength in depth in the team and for sure you’re always looking at where we can be better and I am confident we will do that.”

Asked about the Silverstone-specific issues for Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda, Horner added: “We’ve got some understeer in the car that we just need to tidy up so it’s a bit of a balancing effect.

“We’re giving away 90% of our lap time in Turn 6 and 7, so that the slow speed and turning back into the wind there, but the rest of the laps looking pretty decent and actually the long run if you look at the times look pretty sensible.

“So I think we’ve got something we can work with. We’ve just got to make sure we tune it overnight the right way.”