Max Verstappen admits set-up mistakes cost Red Bull the chance to win the 2025 British GP as their gamble on a low-downforce wing didn’t pay off when the rain fell at Silverstone on Sunday.
The four-time world champion produced an excellent lap to take pole position ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris and held the advantage through the opening laps.
However, due to being made to run the intermediate tyres on a wet track, he was struggling to keep his RB21 car under control and eventually lost the lead on Lap 8 when the far more settled MCL39 breezed past.
Unable to keep up, he turned his attention to Norris in the sister McLaren but had to relinquish second on Lap 11 when he ran wide at the exit of Becketts, being caught out again by his Red Bull beneath him.
Then at a safety car restart, saw him spin after almost crashing into Piastri (the 23-year-old collecting a 10-second penalty doer the moment), which dropped him out of contention for the win and forced to launch a recovery drive.
The reason why? He had opted for a low downforce rear wing that had the potential to making him very difficult to overtake in dry conditions if he could carry the speed through the high-speed corners.
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However, with rain falling he simply lacked the grip to do so and struggled for traction and Verstappen admits mistakes regarding the team’s set-up decision was caught out by the intense rain at the 2025 British GP and cost Red Bull dear.
“Probably not ideal in these kinds of conditions,” Verstappen said to Sky Sports F1 of his downforce levels. “But we opted for that.
“I honestly never thought it was going to be so wet today, but I think overnight the weather forecast changed a little bit too much and not in our favour. So, I think we were just a bit low on downforce.
“And I couldn’t balance it out between the high speed and low speed with the tools that we had in the car and that made it extremely difficult all the time, and then I had my moment…
“But even after that I recovered from the spin and continued and I had no pace in the pack with people around me and then, again, we did the right thing with the pit stop, staying out a bit on the inters, so all the calls were correct but we, quite simply, lacked a bit of pace.”
Verstappen will take fifth ahead of 2025 Belgian GP
Once he dropped down to 10th with the spin, briefly 11th when Alex Albon passed him before he fought back, his attention turned swiftly to a rare sight for the Dutchman after 2020 – a recovery drive.
Eventually he worked his way back up to fifth and managed to finish ahead of Pierre Gasly’s Alpine, but a distance 22 seconds away from the podium; which was taken by Nico Hulkenberg’s Sauber.
But in a display of maturity, the 27-year-old defending champion kept the heat off his team as he said it was a good enough result considering the circumstances, and that he isn’t battling for the title, as he still extending his margin of Mercedes’ George Russell to 18 points.
“Last night before I went to bed I looked, I keep an eye on it,” Verstappen added. “But last night before I went to bed it suddenly started to ramp up and I was like, ‘This is not good.’
“And then when I woke up it became even worse. And then you’re locked in – you cannot change the car. It’s what you committed to, and you know then it’s going to be difficult but that’s racing as well. That’s how it goes.
“We’ll never be happy with fifth, but we’ll just take it. I mean, it’s less painful when you are in a position that I’m in. We’ll just analyse that. Yesterday, at least, yesterday was positive for us and we’ll just move onto Spa and try to have a good one.”
