Mekies says Red Bull “takes full responsibility” for Verstappen’s Q3 crash as upgrades show encouraging signs

Red Bull endured a dramatic and demanding qualifying session at their home Austrian Grand Prix, with Max Verstappen crashing out of Q3 and Isack Hadjar securing eighth after a solid but imperfect afternoon.

Team Principal Laurent Mekies said the most important outcome was Verstappen’s wellbeing — and emphasised that the team accepts full responsibility for the unusual incident that ended the Dutchman’s session.

Verstappen had already been navigating a difficult qualifying run before the crash. Entering the session with only three new sets of soft tyres — fewer than his main rivals — Red Bull was forced into a risk‑laden strategy to preserve race‑day flexibility.

Verstappen scraped into Q3 by just 0.040s, then immediately delivered a strong banker lap that placed him in contention for the front row.

But his second run ended abruptly at Turn 9, where the RB22 snapped at high speed and sent him into the barriers.

“The most important thing after this eventful qualifying session is that Max is okay,” Mekies said. “He delivered an excellent first run in Q3, and his final run was very fast until he lost the car in turn 9.

"The dynamic of the incident was quite unusual, and we lost aero performance on the rear of the car and it gave Max no chance to survive. As a Team we take full responsibility for it and apologise to him.”

Mekies also addressed the strategic gamble that left Verstappen with limited tyre resources in Q2.

“Not sending Max out for a second run in Q2 was certainly a close call, but we knew we had to take some risks after deciding to approach qualifying with only three new sets of Softs to give ourselves more strategic options for tomorrow.”

While Verstappen’s crash dominated the headlines, Mekies highlighted the strong and steady progress of Isack Hadjar, who continued his upward trend with another competitive qualifying performance.

“Once again, Isack has put together a very strong weekend so far, continuing to build confidence with every session,” he said. “He kept improving throughout the weekend and delivered another solid qualifying performance.”

Hadjar’s eighth place came despite deployment issues on his final lap and the limitation of having only one new set of soft tyres for Q3.

Beyond the drivers, Mekies placed significant emphasis on Red Bull’s major upgrade package — a wide‑ranging development across both chassis and power unit — which made its debut in Austria.

“With any significant upgrade, it is never simply a case of plug‑and‑play,” he explained. “The real challenge is to understand the package, identify its optimum operating window and maximise its potential over the course of the weekend. We are still learning but today was an encouraging first step. The improved pace we had demonstrated the progress we have made with the package we have brought to Austria.”

He also paid tribute to the factory effort behind the upgrade: “A huge thank you to everyone back at the factory. This large upgrade package, covering many aspects of the car and PU, is the result of the hard work across the entire team.

"Seeing that effort reflected in our competitiveness today is a well‑deserved reward for everyone involved," concluded Mekies.