Adrian Newey recalled the “horrible” Max Verstappen Silverstone 2021 incident, as Red Bull feared he was “badly hurt” in the immediate aftermath.
An epic 2021 title clash between Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen set the scene for one of the most gripping and dramatic seasons Formula 1 has ever produced, though one of the biggest flashpoints that season – which came at Silverstone – proved a frightening experience for the Red Bull camp.
Max Verstappen ‘was just grunting’ on Red Bull team radio
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
Hamilton and Verstappen collided at the apex of Copse, the contact sending Verstappen slamming into the barriers with a 51G impact recorded, the Dutchman taken to hospital for precautionary checks with Red Bull principal Christian Horner later stating that Verstappen had been knocked out for a brief period.
Verstappen meanwhile revealed – just over three years later – that he suffered issues with his vision at the 2021 United States GP, which he linked to that Silverstone shunt.
And when appearing on the High Performance Podcast, Red Bull’s former F1 design guru Newey shed more light on Verstappen’s Silverstone 2021 accident and the initial dread in the Red Bull camp.
Asked what those huge incidents are like for him watching on, Newey replied: “I mean, they’re horrible, they really are.
“I think Max’s one at Silverstone was the last one where we thought, ‘Is he okay? Is he badly hurt in there?’
“And then when he did come on the radio, because he was so badly winded, he was just grunting, and you don’t know what that means.
“He was very sore. He had a quite nasty concussion. He was very sore for a week after, but he was okay.
“So those sorts of accidents still can happen, and do happen. The one at Spa in the Formula 2 race with Anthoine [Hubert], was horrific, and it’s never going to be 100 per cent safe.”
In a season where tensions became high between the battling Mercedes and Red Bull teams, the British Grand Prix at Silverstone proved a major escalator, with Red Bull taking issue over what they saw as a lack of concern for Verstappen from Mercedes, with the team celebrating Hamilton’s recovery from his 10-second time penalty to take a crucial win.
And with the benefit of hindsight, Mercedes would have gone about the Silverstone 2021 aftermath differently.
In an exclusive interview with PlanetF1.com’s Thomas Maher, Mercedes’ chief communications officer and team representative Bradley Lord said: “If we were to talk something we regret, I think, having taken the word of a member of the Red Bull team – and therefore taken a little for granted – Max’s condition after his shunt at Silverstone in 2021.
“I think how we were perceived to handle that aftermath was a point at which that relationship in that season soured quite dramatically.
“We could have handled that in a different way that would have been more reflective of the concern we had for Max’s well-being at that point in time, regardless of our view of the incident and the rights and wrongs of it.
“There was that side of things, and then to have, albeit unintentionally, antagonised the relationship, and the relationship with the fan bases in quite an extreme a way as it happened.
“That’s probably the moment. If we could go back in time and change it, I think we would change our responses and what we did at that point in time, around that afternoon.”