Red Bull to probe rear-wing failure, but Verstappen fury 'justified'

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies has thrown his full support behind Max Verstappen's furious outburst after the reigning world champion's British Grand Prix ended in alarming fashion.

As the Milton Keynes-based outfit comes under fire by its star driver, Mekies insisted the Dutchman had every reason to be angry as the team scrambles to ensure the issue never happens again.

Verstappen's race came to a dramatic conclusion when a rear-wing malfunction sent him spinning into the gravel at Stowe corner, extinguishing any hopes of a podium finish.

The incident came just one week after a violent qualifying crash in Austria, raising fresh concerns over Red Bull's rear-wing reliability despite the two failures rooted in different causes, according to Mekies.

A clearly dejected Verstappen branded the latest malfunction "super dangerous", and Mekies made it clear there would be no attempt to downplay either Verstappen's frustration or the seriousness of the situation.

"Look, he's right not to be happy," Mekies told reporters after the race. "It is very unpleasant for drivers to be let down by the car in high-speed corners in two consecutive races, be it for two different reasons.

"And it is on a much lower scale, also extremely unpleasant for us as a group to send our drivers to the gravel trap. So he's right to be unhappy.

“I have no doubt that the team will put in place what is necessary for that not to happen again, even if we failed to do that today, and we take that as safely as one can do. And therefore the minimum that Max can feel today is being unhappy."

Red Bull promises exhaustive review with 'all the options open'

While Red Bull believes it has already identified the cause of the failure that struck in Austria, Mekies admitted Silverstone presents a fresh challenge, with early findings pointing toward a separate issue.

"We certainly understand what happened at Red Bull Ring,” he said. “We are not going to go into the details, because I don't think it will be right, but we understand the failure, yes.

"And yes, from the early analysis of today's, we have suffered a different type of failure. It doesn't make it better, but it is clear that in front of the succession of events, whether or not the failure is different doesn't really matter. We are going to review the area to make sure we leave zero chance for that to happen again.

"We can certainly see from the data the fact that the wing didn't close properly, and this is why we were able to tell you guys what happened before the car came back. So that's what we can see today.

"Now the car is just back now, and we are only able to say that it's a different type of issue compared to last week, but again, as I said, it doesn't make it better."

The repeated failures have inevitably put the spotlight on Red Bull's distinctive rotating ‘Macarena’ rear-wing configuration, which the team adopted earlier this season after Ferrari pioneered the concept.

• Read also: Verstappen ‘fed up’ after ‘super dangerous’ Silverstone demise

However, Mekies stopped short of blaming the design itself, stressing that the package has already completed multiple race weekends without incident while making it equally clear that nothing will be ruled out during the investigation.

"We will do whatever is necessary to be on the safe side,” he said. “We have raced quite a few races with that concept – we have raced it since Miami, I think.

“It's been a number of races, so it's too early in the analysis to establish whether it's an issue with the concept, or something else. But we are going for sure to leave no stone unturned when it comes to it, and we have all the options open."

With two frightening high-speed incidents in successive weekends, Red Bull now faces intense scrutiny to prove the latest failure was not the symptom of a deeper reliability problem.

For Verstappen, patience is wearing thin – and Mekies has made it clear the team believes its driver is fully entitled to feel that way.

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