Late Verstappen crash sees Red Bull denied British Grand Prix podium

Red Bull missed out on a podium at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone after an incident saw Max Verstappen crash out in the final stages.

The Dutch driver had been able to work his way up to third and was on for back-to-back podiums when a rear wing-related issue saw his car spin off the track and get beached in a gravel trap with just 4 laps of the race to go. The incident was a similar one to a crash Verstappen had endured in qualifying at the Austrian Grand Prix last weekend.

This lead to a controversial ending, where it initially looked like the race was going to get in one more racing lap only for the race to finish behind the safety car.

Meanwhile, Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Isack Hadjar picked up a fifth place finish, ensuring some points for the Milton Keynes-based Red Bull team.

The two Red Bull drivers remain 7th and 8th in the Driver’s Championship standings after 9 races of the 2026 F1 season, with Verstappen on 76 points and Hadjar up to 52 points.

Red Bull have 128 points and sit 4th in the championship, with the team currently 51 points behind 3rd place McLaren and 68 clear of 5th place Alpine.

After the Red Bull parent company’s home race in Austria last week, attention turned for Red Bull to the closest race to the team’s Milton Keynes factory and the British Grand Prix.

Hadjar had started in 5th place, 2 ahead of Verstappen, with reports suggesting the Dutchman had considered an engine change and a pit-lane start before not going through with it.

In the early phase, Red Bull were able to avoid having start-line issues like they had in the sprint race the day before, with the two drivers swapping positions in the early stages.

As proceedings continued, Verstappen would find himself running ahead of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton thanks to a successful undercut. Russell and Hamilton both advanced on Verstappen, however, but just as Russell was beginning to challenge Verstappen, the Mercedes driver was called in due to a slow puncture detected by Mercedes’ on-board sensors.

Hamilton would then pass Verstappen, but the Red Bull would get promoted into the podium places thanks to misfortune ahead. Antonelli had been on course to catch and pass Charles Leclerc, whose Ferrari had flown past Antonelli off the line, but after a broken piece of bodywork interfered with Antonelli’s suspension, the Mercedes was forced into making extra pit-stops and he would disappear from contention for the podium.

This meant that Verstappen had been third and with a healthy enough margin on Russell and Lando Norris, with the Dutchman having made a second stop during a virtual safety car after Nico Hulkenberg’s Audi broke down.

But on lap 48 of 52, Verstappen hit disaster. As he approached Stowe at the end of the Hangar Straight, a rear wing failure saw the car lose a significant part of its downforce, leading to a spin as the car got stuck in a gravel trap and a frustrated Verstappen out of the race. The Dutchman would call the car “undrivable” in his post-crash radio and was similarly scathing in post-race remarks to the media, describing it as “dangerous”.

Hadjar would managed to pick up points for his part, with the Frenchman having a somewhat less eventful race than his teammate, which would have seen him on course for 7th but for Antonelli and Verstappen’s late troubles.

Red Bull have a 2 week break before F1’s next event, when the sport heads to Spa-Francorchamps for the Belgian Grand Prix.