Max Verstappen's future has been the topic of heated conversation for well over 18 months now, dating back to his last Formula 1 world championship triumph in 2024.
The four-time world champion, the outstanding driver of his generation, officially has a £50m-a-year contract with Red Bull until the end of the 2028 season.
However, the Dutchman is motivated by competitiveness. Red Bull have been unable to provide him with a top-tier car in the last two seasons, as illustrated by their constructors' finishing spot: third last year and, at the 2026 summer break, fourth this year. As such, Verstappen is being linked with a move away.
The futures of Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso are shrouded in speculation (Getty)
There is other "silly season" speculation too: Carlos Sainz is understandably disappointed with Williams' poor start to the season and is said to be looking elsewhere, while Fernando Alonso looks to be on the brink of retirement given Aston Martin's torrid plight.

#year #bull #verstappen

For now, Mercedes has no plans to give Kimi Antonelli preferential treatment to help secure his first Formula 1 world championship, despite what happened in the 2025 ******* le battle between the two McLaren drivers and Max Verstappen. The team confirmed that winning the constructors' championship remains its primary target.
For most of the 2025 campaign, McLaren had the fastest car, and the constructors' ******* le was already wrapped up by the Singapore Grand Prix. However, the drivers' ******* le nearly slipped through the team's grasp.
The Woking-based team did not favour either Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri, and in the end, Verstappen nearly 'stole' the world ******* le, finishing just two points behind the Briton in the standings.
In 2026, Mercedes finds itself in a similar situation. At the moment, Antonelli leads the drivers' standings, but George Russell is not out of contention either. Lewis Hamilton is currently sitting in second place, and it is possible that the Mercedes drivers could take so many points off each other that, ultimately, the Ferrari driver could take advantage and win the biggest prize.
Nevertheless, Mercedes refuses to throw its full support behind Antonelli. "The simple principle is, if Mercedes can win the race, Mercedes must win the race. That comes first," deputy team principal Bradley Lord said in response to GPblog's question while speaking to a select group of media.

#title #first #World #championship

Former Sky Sports Formula 1 presenter Rachel Brookes has predicted a massive overhaul of the F1 grid, tipping four-time champion Max Verstappen to join Mercedes and McLaren's Oscar Piastri to replace him at Red Bull.
F1 is now in its summer break, and with that comes a lot of talk about potential driver movements for the upcoming season. While there have been no official announcements of team changes for any driver, speculation about who could go where is ramping up.
Speaking on the Essential F1 podcast, Brookes suggested several driver changes, including an all-British line-up at McLaren and moves to Audi, Alpine and Williams for Carlos Sainz, Fernando Alonso and Franco Colapinto.
"I still think Max is looking for an exit because he's showing us all what he can do right now and we're all impressed and we're like, 'Max is amazing', because he is," she began.
"But he wants to be winning again. He doesn't want to have to show that he can get a car that should be 10th up to second. He wants to be winning races again.

#driver

For a driver accustomed to shattering Formula 1 win records, fighting just to stand on the lower steps of the podium is never going to be enough. As Red Bull Racing continues to grapple with the realities of the new 2026 regulations, Max Verstappen is making his frustrations crystal clear.
Despite pulling off a surprise second-place finish at last weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix, the four-time World Champion is demanding much more from his team as they head into the summer break.
As highlighted by Race+, Verstappen gave a blunt ***** sment of his 2026 campaign so far, dismissing any silver linings about his recent results.
"Three podium finishes this season is nice, but I'm obviously not very excited about that," Verstappen stated, making it clear that mere top-three appearances are not the benchmark for a team that so recently dominated the sport.
He then delivered a classic, no-nonsense Verstappen soundbite regarding the Milton Keynes squad's ultimate focus: "We're not here just to make TikToks and have fun. We're here to win, and that's it!"

#three #team #bull

The summer break is often viewed as a chance for Formula 1 teams and drivers to reset, but history shows it can also be a turning point in a championship battle.
While some drivers return from the shutdown with renewed momentum and find another level of performance, others struggle to maintain their early-season form. From ******* le contenders and regular podium finishers to championship challenges falling apart and car performance dropping, the post-summer stretch has produced some dramatic swings in recent F1 history.
GPblog looks back at some drivers who improved after the summer break and others who saw their form disappear.
Verstappen's ******* le hopes looked dead and buried going into the summer break of 2025, as after a ninth place finish at the Hungarian Grand Prix, he sat 97 points off the championship lead. However, the Dutchman found another level after the summer break, finishing on the podium in each of the 10 remaining races.
He won six of the final races and ultimately only lost out on the ******* le by two points to Lando Norris. His consistency, qualifying pace and ability to maximise difficult weekends helped somehow revive his championship hopes, and he came close to achieving the greatest comeback in Formula 1 history.

#title #formula

Max Verstappen is already firmly locked into a long-term contract with Red Bull Racing that runs through the end of 2028. However, amid a chaotic 2026 silly season fueled by internal team politics and public flirtations from Mercedes, rumors of a potential performance-based exit clause have loomed over the Milton Keynes garage all year.
Now, it appears Red Bull's upper management is ready to throw a massive amount of cash at the problem to ensure their star driver has no legal avenues to jump ship.
According to a recent report originating from the German outlet BILD, Red Bull and Verstappen's management are actively engaged in contract extension talks.
The rumored deal on the table would extend Verstappen's tenure with the team through the 2029 season. To sweeten the pot, Red Bull is reportedly offering a significant pay **** p on top of his current base salary, which already sits at a staggering €65 million (roughly $71 million) per year.
But the massive financial upgrade comes with one major condition: the new contract would completely eliminate any existing exit clauses.

#contract #year #management #million

This is a big weekend for motorsport fans, with Formula 1 rolling into Hungary for Round 11 and NASCAR's Cup Series tackling the legendary Brickyard. Here's everything you need to know about session times, where to watch, and how the championship battles currently stack up.
The Hungaroring hosts Round 11 of the season this weekend. Practice 1 goes green Friday, July 24 at 7:30 a.m. ET, followed by Practice 2 at 11:00 a.m. ET. Saturday brings Practice 3 at 6:30 a.m. ET and Qualifying at 10:00 a.m. ET, before Sunday's race gets underway at 9:00 a.m. ET over 70 laps.
Where to watch: Apple TV is the new home of F1 in the U.S. this season, with F1 TV Pro also carrying the international broadcast and timing data for fans who want every angle of the action.
Kimi Antonelli leads the drivers' standings with 204 points, ahead of Lewis Hamilton (159) in his first year at Ferrari and George Russell (154). Charles Leclerc (126) and Lando Norris (103) round out the top five, while Max Verstappen sits seventh on 91 points, well off his usual pace heading into the summer break.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway hosts a full weekend of NASCAR action. The Craftsman Truck Series opens things up Friday, July 24 with the TSport 200 at 8:00 p.m. ET on FS1. The Xfinity Series runs the Pennzoil 250 Saturday, July 25 at 4:00 p.m. ET on The CW. The headline event, the Cup Series' Brickyard 400, goes green Sunday, July 26 at 2:00 p.m. ET on TNT Sports.

#Friday

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen is supporting Belgian driver Dries van Langendonck through the junior racing ranks.
Van Langendonck is part of the McLaren junior driver program, joining the developmental wing at the age of 13 after winning the 2023 World Junior Karting **** le.
He moved into single-seaters last year, and he became the youngest winner of a British Formula 4 race.
After a stint with the Iberia-based Formula Winter Series, which he won, Van Langendonck is back in British F4 and currently leads the championship after four race wins.
Now, Van Langendonck is being taken under the wing of Max Verstappen, joining Verstappen Racing, where he is the first driver that Verstappen’s team supports.

#british #formula #joining

As has been the case for the past two years, persistent rumors suggest that Red Bull driver Max Verstappen is leaving his only Formula 1 team, though it may be best to wait for now.
Verstappen has been linked heavily to Mercedes in the past, though the Dutchman ended up staying with the incumbent team.
Now, the team connected to Verstappen is McLaren, which is rumored to be in talks with his camp and eyeing him as a teammate to pair with Lando Norris.
The move would come at an odd point considering McLaren has two young drivers tied down for the foreseeable future, and Oscar Piastri should have his best driving ahead of him.
However, with McLaren publicly backing their lineup and Mercedes looking quite comfortable, the only other possible option is Ferrari, though they are also seemingly set.

The role of the man who could make Jürgen Klopp Germany’s national team coach is likely not an unwelcome one for Oliver Mintzlaff at the moment.
The 50-year-old CEO of Red Bull has plenty on his plate with the soft drink maker's sports empire based in Fuschl am See, Austria.
In Formula One, the worst-case scenario is the possible departure of four-time world champion Max Verstappen. Red Bull are far from winning the ****** le in the current season.
And in the other sports where Red Bull competes with its own teams, the biggest successes have also failed to materialize.
Things are not going optimally in the Red Bull sports empire

The Formula 1 paddock has long whispered about the ruthless reality of the second seat at Red Bull Racing. For years, the team’s development philosophy has appeared completely centralized around Max Verstappen, leaving a trail of broken teammates in his wake. Now, Sergio Perez has officially broken the silence, confirming every suspicion about the Milton Keynes squad.
In a deeply revealing interview on the High Performance podcast, Perez pulled back the curtain on his turbulent tenure with the team, exposing an environment that ultimately fractured his confidence and forced him to take a sabbatical before joining Cadillac.
Most drivers enter a new championship-winning organization with illusions of equal treatment and a fair fight. Perez, however, was stripped of those illusions before he even sat in the car.
Reflecting on his initial conversations with the team boss, Perez revealed that Christian Horner didn’t mince words about the team’s singular focus.
“First time I met Christian, he told me, I mean, we go racing with two cars because we have to, you know. Otherwise, we will be super happy just to race with one car,” Perez recalled. “Everything is for Max, around Max. We want to win the championship.”

Guenther Steiner has urged the FIA to introduce permanent, full-time stewards and increase the use of artificial intelligence to prevent a repeat of the anticlimactic end to the British Grand Prix.
The race at Silverstone, which saw Ferrari's Charles Leclerc claim his first victory of the season ahead of Mercedes' George Russell and his own team-mate Lewis Hamilton, ended behind the safety car.
The safety car was deployed on lap 48 of 52 when Red Bull's Max Verstappen spun out and became beached in the gravel at Stowe corner. While it initially seemed as though racing would resume before the end of the race, with the notice that the safety car would come in being shown on the broadcasts, the race finished under safety car conditions.
The FIA later confirmed that the message had been shown in error and explained that there were not enough laps left to complete the unlapping process, which is why the safety car stayed out.
During an appearance on The Red Flags Podcast, Steiner did not hold back in his **** sment of the situation.

Sky Sports pundit Martin Brundle believes Max Verstappen will eventually decide to leave Red Bull and begin a new chapter with another team, whether that happens at the end of this season or the next.
It is a hugely challenging period in the four-time world champion's career, with Verstappen coming off another retirement at Silverstone following a major incident caused by the active aero system on the rear wing, while rumours of a possible move to McLaren continue to gather momentum.
Speaking to Sky Sports, the former Formula 1 driver said he believes Verstappen will eventually choose to leave Red Bull in search of a fresh challenge, whether that happens in 2027 or 2028. Brundle pointed to Lewis Hamilton as an example of a driver who benefited from moving on after spending a long period with the same team.
"I think if he could go, he will go at some point, whether it's 2027 or 2028, and do something fresh for him. We see drivers do that. We saw Lewis Hamilton do that, for example, and get a reset and a new challenge after a very long time in a team."
Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

Charles Leclerc added a second win for Ferrari in three races at a dramatic British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
Mercedes' George Russell finished second and Leclerc's team-mate Lewis Hamilton third in their home race.
Kimi Antonelli, who won his first sprint on Saturday, ended the race in 16th after car problems, reducing his lead over Russell to 25 points.
BBC F1 correspondent Andrew Benson answers your latest questions after a race which finished under the safety car after Max Verstappen crashed out.
Did Formula 1 miss a trick with the ending of the British GP? Should they be looking at what happened in a similar situation at this year's Indy 500? To avoid finishing behind the safety car, they red-flagged the race to enable recovery before then restarting the race and finishing under green-flag conditions - Matthew

Laurent Mekies has not ruled out the possibility of the Red Bull Racing team reviewing its rear wing concept after Max Verstappen suffered another crash during the British Grand Prix weekend.
The four-time champion appeared to have masterfully salvaged what had looked like a weekend slipping away from him and was on course for a podium finish, only for it to unravel during the closing stages of the race. Verstappen appeared to lose control of the RB22 at the high-speed Stowe corner on lap 48.
The crash effectively ended his race as he was unable to get the beached car out of the gravel. Following the race, Verstappen pulled no punches in expressing his feelings about the car and its rear wing,describing it as "dangerous" and noting that the crash could have been far worse at a circuit with less run-off area.
Asked about the inverted rear wing and Verstappen's frustration, Mekies did not dismiss the possibility of the Milton Keynes-based team reverting to a more conventional rear wing approach. While he stopped short of attributing the crash solely to the rear wing concept, the Red Bull team principal stressed that the team would leave no stone unturned in exploring its options.
Max Verstappen's RB22 in the aftemath of his crash at the British Grand Prix - Photo: Race Pictures

First things first: I can’t picture Max Verstappen actually having sleepless nights. Not with four world championships under his belt, a loving family at home, and plenty of enticing options tempting him outside of Formula 1.
And yet, the fact that things are going so badly for him in F1 right now must really sting. What’s worse, there is no sign improvements in the short- or medium-term future. Within just one year, his situation in the pinnacle of motorsport has deteriorated drastically.
Just a year ago, the F1 world seemed to lie at his feet. Granted, even back then, Red Bull wasn’t as strongly positioned performance-wise as in previous years, but the future still looked incredibly promising.
During the summer break, fans on the internet were stalking his and Mercedes boss Toto Wolff’s yachts off the coast of Sardinia, and everyone was talking about a move to the Silver Arrows. Wolff, at least, made no secret of his desire to sign the Dutchman – if not now, then at least further down the road.
At the time, staying with Red Bull seemed like a clever move for Verstappen. It allowed him to wait and see which team nailed the new regulations best before deciding where he wanted to drive in 2027.

Formula 1 competed at Silverstone, and it was a stunning event. Kimi Antonelli won the pole and was expected to be a heavy favorite to win the British Grand Prix. However, Antonelli got behind at the start of the race, leaving the Mercedes driver on the chase. At the end of the day, it was a Ferrari driver who earned the victory.
Charles Leclerc and the No. 16 team for Ferrari won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, earning their first victory of the 2026 Formula 1 season. Leclerc took the lead at the start and created a gap to second place. Antonelli tried to run down Leclerc in the closing laps, but suffered a stunning mechanical issue.
Formula 1 ended the race in a safety car after Max Verstappen got beached in the gravel. It was a disappointing end for Formula 1 at Silverstone; however, the right driver won on Sunday. Leclerc put together a spectacular performance at Silversont, earning his first win since the 2024 season.
No. 16 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)
No. 63 George Russell (Mercedes)

Silverstone doesn't have a bowl like Indianapolis, and Northamptonshire isn't exactly blessed with parking capacity. And yet 564,000 people found a way to cram themselves onto that old airfield between July 3 and July 5, the largest crowd that has ever turned out for a Formula 1 event anywhere on the calendar. That number doesn't describe one sunny afternoon. It's the ******* ulative count across practice, sprint qualifying, the sprint race, qualifying, and Sunday's Grand Prix, and it says more about where this sport is right now than any single lap time does.
Attendance figures like this one are always tallies, not single-day headcounts, and that distinction matters before anyone starts comparing it to a football stadium's capacity. A circuit can only physically hold so many bodies on race day itself once you account for grandstands, run-off, and emergency egress routes, so that number is effectively capped no matter how badly a promoter wants to sell more tickets. What made 2026 different wasn't a bigger track. It was hundreds of thousands of people deciding a Friday practice session and a Saturday sprint were worth paying for on top of Sunday, and that's really the figure that ought to have circuit marketing departments elsewhere paying attention.
We already broke down the race itself in detail, and it earned every one of those extra ticket sales. Charles Leclerc finally won at Silverstone after years of trying, Kimi Antonelli's ******* le bid came apart when a wheel shield failed while he was hunting down the lead, and Max Verstappen buried his Red Bull in the Stowe gravel for the second race weekend running because of the same rear wing fault that ended his qualifying in Austria. It was as chaotic as Silverstone has been in years, sprint format included, and the on-track drama only made the record crowd figure look better in hindsight.
The grid walk on Sunday looked less like a paddock and more like an awards-show red carpet, with Hannah Waddingham, Hugh Grant, Jeremy Clarkson, Brian May, and a rotating cast of Premier League footballers all wandering around before lights out. None of that happens by accident. It's the byproduct of a decade of deliberate positioning, Drive to Survive turning drivers into recognizable characters, Lewis Hamilton's move to Ferrari giving British fans a rooting interest wrapped in Italian red, and a championship fight tight enough that Antonelli, Russell, and Hamilton are now separated by 32 points with more than a third of the season still to run.
There's a financial angle to a record crowd that's easy to skip past amid the celebrity spotting. Grandstand seats, hospitality packages, and paddock club access make race week Silverstone's single biggest revenue event of the year, and promoters don't publish attendance totals purely for bragging rights. They're effectively an annual earnings report for the venue, one that circuits use internally to justify grandstand expansions and, eventually, to defend the nex

It's been nearly a week since George Russell won the Austrian Grand Prix at the famed Red Bull Ring, but there's still significant fallout following his pole-position win in Q3, courtesy of Spanish driver Carlos Sainz, who is proposing a severe penalty for drivers who trigger yellow and red flags during qualifying sessions.
For the uninitiated, the drama unfolded one day before the main event during Q3, when Red Bull's Max Verstappen crashed at the second-to-last corner on his final lap. The crash prompted a single-waved yellow flag, which Russell, who races for Mercedes-Benz, adhered to by lifting when passing through a single-waved yellow-flag zone, per F1's rulebook. Despite being forced to lift, Russell's final lap was more than good enough to earn him pole position.
While Russell followed the rule to the letter, drivers still felt that the crash should have immediately resulted in a double-waved yellow flag, which eventually came some 22 seconds later. But by that point, Russell had already proceeded.
Sainz, however, told reporters that the crash should have triggered a red flag, though he has no issue with how Russell handled it.
"The way George handled it, I think was perfect for what the rule book allows you to do, and he deserved that pole position because he played the rules to perfection," the Williams driver said, via Racing News 365. "But I don't think it should ever have been allowed to finish that lap, or to complete a lap in that kind of dangerous situation."

Max Verstappen said the rear wing failure on his Red Bull that caused him to crash at two consecutive grands prix was "super-dangerous".
The four-time world champion was chasing Lewis Hamilton's Ferrari for second place in the British Grand Prix when he lost control at the high-speed Stowe corner on lap 47.
The incident, as well as a crash in qualifying at the Austrian Grand Prix the weekend before, were caused by his rear wing failing to close properly when straight-line mode switched off on corner entry.
Verstappen, who swore about the car over the team radio after the accident at Silverstone, said: "It's super-dangerous because you can really hurt yourself two times.
"I was lucky in Austria, I was lucky here. That's why you get really fed up with it."

A record Silverstone crowd booed the farcical conclusion to Sunday's British Grand Prix which ended behind a safety car amid a "software error".
Charles Leclerc claimed his first win in almost two years for Ferrari, with George Russell second and Lewis Hamilton completing the podium. Championship leader Kimi Antonelli failed to score after he damaged his Mercedes.
A safety car had been deployed with four laps left after Max Verstappen crashed out from third.
The stage appeared set for a thrilling one-lap finale as a message was relayed that the safety car would be in at the end of the 51st of 52 racing laps.
However, it was sent by the governing FIA in error – because the unlapped cars had not completed a full lap – and a grandstand finish was scrubbed off.

Ferrari Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton will keep his third place in the British Grand Prix after getting off with a reprimand for a yellow-flag infringement.
Hamilton was investigated by the FIA race stewards for allegedly speeding through a yellow-flag zone during the Silverstone race, passing the stranded Audi of Nico Hulkenberg.
Video evidence showed that Hamilton entered the yellow sector in Turn 9 before the yellow flag was displayed and only received a warning on his dashboard at the end of it, while he had also been distracted by the wheel-to-wheel battle with Max Verstappen.
The stewards accepted that the seven-time world champion only had little time to react to the yellows, but as he didn't reduce speed they still handed him a reprimand.
As a result Hamilton retains third place behind his winning team-mate Charles Leclerc and Mercedes' George Russell, with the pair benefitting from a late retirement from championship leader Kimi Antonelli.

The 2026 season has been an unmitigated disaster for Red Bull Racing, but the British Grand Prix may have officially pushed Max Verstappen to his breaking point.
After suffering a premature DNF just six laps into the race at Silverstone, the reigning multi-time world champion did not hold back in his post-race media duties. While speaking with SkySports F1, Verstappen delivered a brutally honest ******* sment of his machinery, citing not only a severe lack of pace but a terrifying mechanical flaw that actively put him in danger.
Here is why the former championship juggernaut is completely fed up.
Silverstone is one of the fastest, most aerodynamically demanding circuits on the Formula 1 calendar. Relying on massive downforce to navigate corners like Copse and Maggotts, a fully functioning rear wing is non-negotiable for driver safety.
But according to Verstappen, his Red Bull was actively failing to re-engage its downforce after the Drag Reduction System (DRS) was deployed.

The British Grand Prix showcased plenty of overtakes through the 52-lap race, but the last few laps of the race offered a major twist, leading to the race ending behind the safety car.
The last ten laps of the British GP saw some major events, starting with Kimi Antonelli, who was well-positioned to challenge race leader Charles Leclerc for a win, but a damaged wheel shield on his W17 Mercedes F1 car led to handling issues. That ensured Antonelli received a five-second time penalty for crossing track limits.
He pitted twice due to the problem, with the team even changing the car's nose, but that brought him down to P10. He was now fighting for a single point. But on Lap 48, Max Verstappen, who had just lost second place to Lewis Hamilton, spun out and beached his car in the gravel. A delayed rear wing operation is suspected to have caused the spin. Red Bull has yet to reveal the real reason.
However, the incident triggered a safety car, prompting many teams to pit their cars for a tire swap for the last four laps. Ferrari brought both drivers into the pits during the safety car period. While Leclerc retained the lead, Hamilton's stop proved costly, as he lost second place to George Russell.
All cars followed the safety car eventually, and with the backmarkers asked to overtake and take their spot, a one-lap shootout was on the cards. The safety car was supposed to exit the track before the last lap, but something changed at the last moment, and the race ended under the safety car, with Leclerc taking the top spot, Russell taking second, and Hamilton finishing third.

Lewis Hamilton crossed the line third at Silverstone on Sunday, but by his own admission, the car he climbed out of bore little resemblance to the one he'd been so optimistic about on Friday. Charles Leclerc took his first win of the season after a late safety car following Max Verstappen's retirement on lap 48 of 52 handed him the victory over George Russell, with Hamilton completing the podium despite the afternoon going sideways almost from the opening lights.
"Congrats to Charles. He did a great job. All the magic I had on Friday just disappeared through the weekend," Hamilton told Sky Sports F1.
The root cause, per Hamilton: "I was just lacking front end. We massively under-egged it on the front wing. That's my fault and the engineer's fault."
The Maggotts-Becketts-Chapel complex loads the front axle relentlessly, the circuit's preponderance of right-handers means the left-front tyre takes a sustained battering, and with Pirelli bringing its hardest compounds to the weekend, finding the right front-end downforce is not a detail you get to miss.
The front-wing error wasn't Hamilton's only problem. He picked up a five-second penalty for moving off the line fractionally before the lights went out – his car crept forward before he stopped and re-set.

Charles Leclerc won the 2026 British Grand Prix at Silverstone on Sunday, but the way the race finished has left hundreds of thousands of fans and a good portion of the paddock asking obvious questions. A late safety car deployment following Max Verstappen's gravel excursion at Stowe on lap 48 of 52 put the race under yellow for the run home, and what looked briefly like a one-lap shootout never materialised – partly because of regulations, and partly because of a screen that lied.
Race control first showed a "Safety Car In This Lap" message, suggesting a green-flag restart was imminent. Then the message flipped, the safety car stayed out, and Leclerc crossed the line with the field bunched behind him. The boos from the Silverstone crowd were immediate.
The FIA issued a prompt explanation of the incident, citing Article B5.13.5 of the regulations, which mandates that a full lap must be completed following the unlapping procedure before the safety car is permitted to return to the pit lane. Race Operations followed that process correctly. The confusion came from elsewhere: "The 'Safety Car In This Lap' message was displayed erroneously due to a software error," the FIA confirmed, meaning the message fans and teams saw was never supposed to appear.
The full statement: "The Safety Car period regulation, Article B5. 13.5, states that one lap must be completed following the unlapping procedure.
"This process was followed by Race Operations. The 'Safety Car In This Lap' message was displayed erroneously due to a software error."

One week after finishing second in Austria – where Max Verstappen might even have been able to win with a different strategy – the picture looks considerably bleaker this weekend.
During qualifying at Silverstone, Verstappen was hampered by a power unit issue, but even without that problem he believes Red Bull simply lacks the pace to compete at the front as he could only lift the RB22 to seventh on the grid.
Read Also:
F1 British GP: Kimi Antonelli beats Charles Leclerc to pole position
Whereas after the Austrian Grand Prix Verstappen was even asked in the FIA press conference whether another **** le fight was still possible, given last year's comeback, his response in the Silverstone paddock was brief: "They shouldn't ask me that question anymore."

After surprising even himself with third place in sprint qualifying, Verstappen's qualifying session for the Formula 1 British Grand Prix turned into a major disappointment.
For the first time since Baku 2024, Verstappen was beaten by a team-mate in Q3 – back then it was Sergio Perez, this time it was Isack Hadjar, who finished one-and-a-half tenths ahead.
However, Verstappen already felt during qualifying that something was wrong with Red Bull's 2026 power unit, known as the DM01.
Read Also:
F1 British GP: Kimi Antonelli beats Charles Leclerc to pole position

Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli took pole position for the British Grand Prix with another impressive performance to beat the Ferraris and team-mate George Russell.
The Italian, who won the sprint race at Silverstone earlier on Saturday, was faster than Ferrari's Charles Leclerc by 0.175 seconds.
Lewis Hamilton was third in the second Ferrari, ahead of George Russell, who was 0.370secs slower than his 19-year-old team-mate.
Isack Hadjar took fifth, beating team-Max Verstappen for only the second time all year when both finished qualifying, the Dutchman split from the Frenchman by McLaren's Lando Norris.
McLaren's Oscar Piastri led the Racing Bulls of 18-year-old British rookie Arvid Lindblad and Liam Lawson to complete the top 10.

Formula 1 heads to Silverstone in Great Britain for round nine of the 2026 F1 season in a sprint weekend that could play a key role in the drivers’ championship ******* le race.
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli still leads the way but since claiming a fifth consecutive victory with a victory in Monaco the impressive 19-year-old has seen his lead cut to 43 points.
Follow the British Grand Prix sprint race and qualifying live
A DNF in Barcelona helped Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton close the gap, as the seven-time champion claimed a first grand prix win for the Italian team, before Antonelli’s Mercedes teammate George Russell earned victory at the Austrain Grand Prix last time out.
Antonelli limited that damage with a place on the podium but it was the eye-raising performance of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who swept through to finish second, that makes the prospect of three teams competing at the top such an exciting one as F1 descends on Silverstone.