Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies apologised to Max Verstappen on his radio after his ninth-place finish in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Verstappen was the last driver on the lead lap at the end of the race and finished one minute and 12 seconds behind winner Lando Norris. His only lower finish this season occured at the Spanish Grand Prix where he received a 10-second penalty for colliding with George Russell.

“Sorry Max, we didn’t give you the car you deserved,” Mekies told Verstappen after he took the chequered flag, “but thanks for trying as hard as you did.”

Verstappen’s team mate Yuki Tsunoda also finished out of the points in 17th place after starting from the pit lane.

“It has been a very tough weekend from the first lap in FP1 and the race reflected this,” said Mekies. “We have certainly missed something quite key this weekend and looked at many things with both Yuki and Max to try to get back to the level we had and get the car in the right window.

“The team have tried everything but the underlying performance was missing to be able to fight at the top end.”

Although Verstappen criticised the team’s strategy during the race, Mekies believes a different approach would not have produced a better result.

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“The truth is we didn’t have the performance, so when we pitted Max wasn’t ultimately going to be defining to the race result,” he said. “We just did not have the lap time we needed in the car.”

Before the race weekend began Verstappen ended months of speculation over his future by confirming he will continue to drive for Red Bull next year. He was widely reported to have a clause in his contract which allowed him to exit the team if he dropped out of the top three places in the championship before the summer break.

As the summer break begins Verstappen remains third but 108 points behind championship leader Oscar Piastri. He is 15 points ahead of George Russell in fourth.

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