Red Bull chiefs offer miserable Max Verstappen update after Austrian Grand Prix

Red Bull boss Christian Horner and Helmut Marko have conceded that Max Verstappen's dreams of securing the Drivers' Championship title are effectively over following his DNF at the Austrian Grand Prix. The reigning world champion was taken out by Kimi Antonelli at Turn Three after the Mercedes starlet locked up his rear tyres. While Verstappen was unable to complete the opening lap of the Austrian GP, his title rivals escaped unscathed.

Lando Norris converted his pole position into a third Grand Prix victory of the season, while championship leader Oscar Piastri finished close behind in second. That result means that, heading into the British Grand Prix on Sunday, Piastri is 61 points clear of Verstappen, while Norris is 46 points ahead of Red Bull's star driver. Then there is the 27-year-old's penalty points situation. He remains within three of a race ban, despite having two removed from his license in Austria.

"We've got some updates coming over the next two races, but this was a performance that, I'd almost say... yes, it forces us to write off the championship," Marko told TV ORF at the Red Bull Ring.

He continued: "With this kind of gap and unless we manage to catch up soon enough to win on merit, I mean, how many points is Max trailing now? Looking at McLaren's performance, they only had a dip in Canada when they needed new parts.

"That's not something we can rely on happening again. So no, it doesn't look good. Unfortunately, it's both the time gap and the 60-point margin, which is nearly equivalent to three race wins. That's incredibly difficult to recover."

Unfortunately for Verstappen, his team principal had no real optimism to offer up after Red Bull's worst weekend of the season so far. "McLaren, you can see how they're racing each other," Horner said. "They've got a cushion to the rest of the field. For us, we just focus on one race at a time.

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"We don't even think about championships, we just focus on the next race at Silverstone and what we can achieve there. I still believe that we have strength and depth in this team, and unfortunately, we haven't seen the performance come that we would like.

"We're at the end of a set of regulations. I think we are compromised by some of the tools that we have, but it's the same fundamental group of people that 18 months ago had designed a car that won every single grand prix by one. They didn't suddenly just become idiots overnight.

"So, you have to acknowledge the great job that McLaren is doing, and congratulations to them. But for us, it's just about working harder, because everybody's working incredibly hard. It's just working smarter. And let's see over the next few races."