Sudden Red Bull crisis runs much deeper than Max Verstappen disaster

Since the moment Max Verstappen entered conversations about a possible Formula 1 drive as a young teenager, all people could talk about was how special and rare his talent was.

Ten years on from his Formula 1 debut, he already has four world championships, sits third all-time in Grand Prix wins with 63, and fourth all-time with 116 podium finishes. He also has the most wins in a single Formula 1 season with 19, the most consecutive wins with 10, and is the youngest ever race winner at just 18 years and 227 days, among many other records.

However, every great in any sport has weaknesses. When a tough or frustrating situation arises, Verstappen has a tendency to get angry, lose his head, and drive erratically. Specifically over the last year, it has proven to be his one and only fatal flaw.

This weakness of Verstappen's spiraled worse than ever at the end of the Spanish Grand Prix.

Verstappen had two borderline tantrums behind the wheel last season in Hungary and Mexico that really opened fans' eyes to a possible weakness that the competition could exploit. However, what happened last Sunday in Barcelona was nothing short of a complete meltdown.

After Verstappen made contact with Charles Leclerc on the front straight on a late Safety Car restart, he was also hit off the track by George Russell at turn one while fighting for fourth place. Red Bull made the call to give the spot to the Mercedes, despite it later being revealed they didn't have to do so.

Verstappen then pulled over exiting turn four to let Russell past, before then hitting the throttle and slamming into him at turn five.

While Verstappen denied to answer whether it was a deliberate collision, all signs from onboard cameras, telemetry, and the eye test point to it being exactly that.

The four-time reigning champion was given a 10-second penalty, demoting him to 10th place. Verstappen entered Spain just 25 points behind Oscar Piastri's championship lead, effectively a race win, but now trails the McLaren driver by 49.

Verstappen also received three penalty points, which brings his total to 11 over the last 12 months. If he gets one more penalty point in the month of June, he will receive a one-race ban.

Given the fact that Verstappen was awarded a penalty point for driving too slowly on a qualifying cooldown lap in Qatar last year, adding one point to his license in the next two races is very, very possible. Even being on his best behavior and keeping his nose clean may not be enough.

A race ban for Verstappen could have catastrophic ramifications that go far beyond just his own championship defense.

Should Verstappen get a penalty in either Canada next week or Austria later this month, his run of four straight world championships victories would undoubtedly be over, especially if either McLaren driver wins said race.

And whether he says so or not, the embarrassment of that situation would have to be massive. He'd be just the second driver in the last 13 years to be given a race ban, and as a four-time world champion, that's a brutal club to be part of.

Beyond that, though, nobody is truly realizing the greater affect it could have on his team and even the sport.

If Verstappen is forced to miss a race, it would effectively leave Red Bull with two No. 2 drivers that weekend, with Racing Bulls' Isack Hadjar likely getting the one-race promotion alongside Yuki Tsunoda.

Red Bull currently sit in fourth place in the constructor championship, having dropped from third in Barcelona, but their second car has only scored seven of their 144 points in 2025. Essentially, Verstappen as his own constructor would also be fourth in the championship.

With how poor the driver in the second seat has performed dating back to 2024, it's a very real possibility that both cars could struggle to even score points on pure pace.

While Hadjar has had an impressive rookie season, having just one race to suddenly adjust to an all-new and very challenging car is not likely to produce a good outcome.

The one positive that could come out of that scenario for Red Bull is that it would undoubtedly give them a serious eye opener as to where their car stands in the pecking order, without one of the greatest drivers in F1 history overachieving in the cockpit.

Additionally, if Hadjar were to match or beat Tsunoda, perhaps in a situation similar to when Russell replaced the COVID-19-stricken Lewis Hamilton for the Sakhir Grand Prix in 2020, could it represent the beginning of the end for Tsunoda?

On an even broader scale, you have to wonder, if Verstappen were to be banned for the Austrian Grand Prix, a race which always receives huge attendance from the Dutch "orange army", would the Red Bull Ring still have full grandstands?

While there are so many questions and possibilities surrounding Verstappen's possibly impending absence, all of these are hypothetical scenarios. It's more probable that Verstappen avoids all trouble in the next two rounds and gets out of this danger zone when his penalty points start to expire.

But should Verstappen be given a one-race ban, the fallout, both during and long after, would be one of the biggest stories to follow for some time.