Max Verstappen is fuming, team principal Mekies admits: “This is a step backwards”

Max Verstappen drove his heart out in the final practice session for the historic British Grand Prix, but it was all in vain – the driving virtuoso could not manage better than seventh on the grid.

Afterwards, the 28-year-old Dutchman was thoroughly fed up: “What a disaster! Unbelievable. Nothing worked. On the one hand, the car’s balance isn’t good enough; on the other, we’re slow on the straights.”

“We’ve got a problem with the engine that we can’t get to the bottom of. And that naturally raises a lot of questions for me about how we should proceed. It was just embarrassing and poor today. And if we go into the race like this, there’s no point.”

Red Bull Racing team principal Laurent Mekies admits: “We’ve taken a step backwards compared to where we were in Austria, and we’ve struggled right from the start of the weekend.”

The Frenchman continued: “We’re still learning how to find the ideal set-up for this car, and that proved more difficult here at Silverstone than expected.”

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“We never managed to give Max a car with which he could attack as much as he would have liked. He lost speed on the straights, and in a situation where the differences between the top four teams are so small, that simply isn’t enough.”

The team principal did not address the engine issues.