Now we know footballpickr.com is a football site, but sometimes a story comes along from the world of sport that is just too good to ignore, and Max Verstappen letting rip at Red Bull absolutely qualifies. When one of the best drivers on the planet starts publicly saying he is fed up with his own car, you stop and listen.
Verstappen, a three-time world champion and someone who has basically made winning look routine over the past few years, crashed out of the British Grand Prix due to a fault with his Red Bull machinery. And he was not in the mood to be diplomatic about it afterwards. He called the issue dangerous, which is not a word a racing driver uses lightly, and said he is getting really fed up with it. That is as close to a public falling out with your own team as you are likely to see in motorsport.
What makes this interesting is the timing. Red Bull dominated Formula One so completely not long ago that it felt almost unfair. Verstappen was winning races for fun and the rest of the field were left arguing over the scraps. But cracks have been appearing this season, and when your star man starts airing his frustrations in public, that usually means things behind closed doors are even more tense than what is being let out.
For any sports fan, this is a familiar story. You see it in football all the time. A top player starts dropping hints, making comments, and suddenly the whole dynamic of a club shifts. United fans will know that feeling all too well over the years, watching world class players lose faith in the project around them. It rarely ends quietly.
Whether Red Bull can fix the technical issues fast enough to keep Verstappen fully onside remains to be seen. He is still the best driver out there, but even the best need a car they can trust. Right now, it sounds like that trust is wearing thin, and that should worry everyone at Red Bull a lot more than one crash at Silverstone.
Let me know your thoughts.