What now for Verstappen after 'fed up' complaints?

"At the moment, I'm honestly 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, frustrating race of Max Verstappen's Formula 1 career but the Red Bull driver left Silverstone just over a week ago appearing almost exasperated at how that particular weekend had unfolded.

His mood naturally wasn't helped by the fact his race had ended where no driver ever wants it to - beached in a gravel trap - after a rear-wing fault pitched the Dutchman's RB22 car off the road with six laps to go when running in third place going through high-speed Stowe.

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It was the second time in nine days that such a failure, albeit for slightly different reasons, had struck his car after Verstappen was also spun out, hitting the barriers, at speed at the end of qualifying in Austria.

The Silverstone failure promoted Verstappen to bluntly state that the situation was becoming dangerous for him, saying: "I was lucky in Austria, I was lucky here, but that's why you get really fed up with it."

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While Red Bull apologised to their four-time world champion driver afterwards and said they will work to ensure the wing problem doesn't reoccur, Verstappen had already expressed dissatisfaction with the car's handling and top speed around the fast sweeps of Silverstone on another challenging weekend for the former champions in the 2026 season.

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

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All that came amid heightened uncertainty over where exactly the Dutchman will be driving next year after a second weekend running in which speculation about links to McLaren dominated driver-market discussion in the media.

Drivers' Championship: Top eight

Driver

Team

Points

1) Kimi Antonelli

Mercedes

179

2) George Russell

Mercedes

154

3) Lewis Hamilton

Ferrari

147

4) Charles Leclerc

Ferrari

108

5) Lando Norris

McLaren

97

6) Oscar Piastri

McLaren

82

7) Max Verstappen

Red Bull

76

8) Isack Hadjar

Red Bull

52

Will Austria or Silverstone prove to be the trend?

Red Bull's struggles at Silverstone were in contrast to what had appeared a turning of the corner for their 2026 season just days before at their own Red Bull Ring in Austria.

Boosted by a big aerodynamic upgrade to the RB22 which helped address season-long weight issues with the car, Verstappen felt he was in the mix for the second row in qualifying before his premature end to Q3 and then enjoyed a surprisingly competitive race to finish on the tail of George Russell's race-winning Mercedes in second place, just his second podium finish of 2026.

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Verstappen said afterwards it was "the first time, I think, in the race where I felt really competitive" this season since the sport's new chassis and power unit regulations were introduced.

But then came Silverstone.

While his British Grand Prix weekend had also started promisingly enough with third place on the Sprint grid, a slide to 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 his dramatic exit at Stowe inside the final 10 laps, but the lofty position at that point didn't kid him. He said they had "got lucky" to be that high due to the misfortune of others and that had he finished where he was "it would have been a podium that we didn't deserve on pace".

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Speaking after the race, Laurent Mekies, Red Bull's team principal, said that he thinks Verstappen's frustrations with the RB22 stem from one area in particular.

"Max is unhappy with the car balance," said Mekies. "That's a fact.

"What it means is that he feels that the underlying performance of the car could bring much better results if we manage to solve the balance limitations we are having."

After the Austria-Britain back-to-back, the bigger gap before Spa came at a good time for Red Bull in that it will have allowed their engineers to go through the data on their Austria upgrade package and see what worked, what could be improved, and how they now optimise the RB22 for another power-hungry track at Spa, where energy deployment is again expected to be a challenge.

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A Red Bull social media video last Wednesday showed Verstappen, in jovial mood as he quipped about the British heatwave, arriving at their Milton Keyes factory to no doubt further debrief Silverstone and ramp up preparations on the simulator the final two events before F1 breaks for summer.

He'll be hoping all their work behind closed doors since delivers a step forward in Belgium.

Will Spa be any better for Verstappen and Red Bull?

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

The fact that Belgium and the Netherlands are neighbouring countries also means that the 'Orange Army' are as prominent in the grandstands and viewing areas around Spa-Francorchamps as anywhere outside of Zandvoort.

Spa is also one of the tracks that Verstappen has enjoyed most success thanks to three wins consecutively from 2021-2023. The Dutchman famously won from 14th on the grid in 2022, while he was also victorious in last year's Sprint despite a difficult run of mid-season form for Red Bull.

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The chance to challenge at the front again would therefore be particularly welcomed by Verstappen and his fans, although the high-speed and aerodynamically demanding nature of F1's longest track is not one that Red Bull would ideally pick for their RB22 car right now.

"On tracks where energy limitations are strong, we seem to be struggling more compared to the competition," admitted Mekies after Silverstone.

"In that respect, I'm afraid Spa is probably in that category as well, but it doesn't mean we give up and we turn the page, it means that we will need to sooner or later to improve on that. It's about improving 360 degrees, that's what we try to do every day.

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"So we need this weekend to make a small step forward in this sort of track I hope for Spa. I trust the team is learning very quickly, it's still the first year with our PU [Power Unit], they're going to get around these energy-starving tracks.

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

"So I hope we can be in a slightly better shape in Spa but from a characteristic perspective it should be quite similar to [Silverstone] and then hopefully Budapest gives a different picture."

What do Red Bull's difficulties mean for Verstappen's future?

Red Bull's struggles for consistency and reliability in the early months of F1's radical new ruleset come at a delicate time given it's still not certain whether their star driver will still even be with them next season.

Verstappen's contractual status is now well known. While his Red Bull deal runs to the end of 2028, he has performance break clauses contained in it.

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The results of Silverstone confirmed that he will not be among the top two positions in the Drivers' Championship after the Hungarian Grand Prix, the final race before the August summer break, meaning he will be free to activate a break to leave at the end of this season - should he wish.

But despite all manner of speculation in recent weeks, that big question remains absolutely unanswered - will Verstappen and his management ultimately seek to leave at season's end amid the team's current lack of race-winning form?

Verstappen, who hasn't even yet absolutely publicly committed to staying in F1 into 2027, has what is believed until as late as October to inform Red Bull whether he wants to leave for next year so still has plenty of time on his side to weigh up his options.

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As have his management, who it emerged during the Austrian weekend had spoken to reigning world champions McLaren. Zak Brown, the Woking team's chief executive, said at Silverstone that those talks "didn't go anywhere" and that "I've got my two drivers", with both world champion Lando Norris and team-mate Oscar Piastri under contract into next season.

Mark Webber, Piastri's manager, told Racer last week that speculation linking his driver to other teams was the work of "fiction".

So if there is indeed no room at McLaren, for 2027 at least, then, on paper, Verstappen appears short on obvious non-Red Bull options given Mercedes and Ferrari's current drivers are also on contracts beyond this year.

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Still, speaking on The F1 Show podcast after Silverstone, Sky Sports F1's Jenson Button said it felt logical that Verstappen would be firmly assessing his options.

"I think that Max at Red Bull sounds really frustrated at the moment," Button said.

"He puts a happy face on a lot of the time, but I think he's very frustrated with the situation. A lot of people that he's worked with for many years and won championships with have left and gone elsewhere.

"It must be very strange, it must feel kind of a bit lonely in that team for him, everyone's brand new around him, so I think he'll be looking elsewhere, I really do, for next year."

Red Bull's performances in Spa and then Hungary next week - two very different circuits that should highlight the strengths and continued weakness of their car - are unlikely to absolutely determine Verstappen's future either way, but good progress with the RB22 will no doubt help the team's cause after the public strains of Silverstone.

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