Red Bull Apologises After Verstappen Austria Crash

Max Verstappen has been confirmed to be unharmed after crashing during qualifying for the 2026 Austrian Grand Prix, with Red Bull Racing apologising to the Dutchman following the incident.

Verstappen lost control of his RB22 at Turn 9 on his final Q3 lap before sliding through the gravel and hitting the barriers. The accident left him fifth on the provisional starting grid.

Team principal Laurent Mekies confirmed Verstappen escaped injury and explained that the team detected a loss of rear aerodynamic performance during the incident.

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"The most important thing after this eventful qualifying session is that Max is okay. 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 Red Bull's decision to send Verstappen out for only one run in Q2. The strategy saw him scrape through by just 0.040 seconds over Pierre Gasly, but the team chose to preserve an additional new set of soft tyres for the race.

"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 the race."