Max Verstappen's difficult 2026 found a new low at Silverstone. The four-time champion crashed out in the closing stages of the British Grand Prix, ending his afternoon and bringing out the safety car that would decide the race.
The timing shaped everything. With Charles Leclerc leading from George Russell, the crowd had been bracing for a final-lap scrap; Verstappen's accident neutralised the race and handed Leclerc a controlled run to the flag behind the safety car. For Red Bull, it capped a weekend to forget and left Verstappen mired in seventh in the standings.
It was the second successive round in which the story of Verstappen's season was told in what went wrong rather than what he could still do. Two weeks on at Spa, he would answer with a front-row start — but Silverstone was another reminder of how far Red Bull have fallen from the front.