Laurent Mekis: The most important thing is that Max is not hurt.

      Laurent Mekies, head of Red Bull Racing, believes that the team took a step back at Max Verstappen's home race, the Dutch Grand Prix, where the four-time world champion was involved in a very serious crash by the end of the first lap. However, Liam Lawson, who temporarily replaced the sidelined Isaac Hajar, earned points for 7th place.

      Fortunately, Verstappen was unharmed, unlike his car, after which the race was halted with red flags. After the restart, the New Zealander continued to fight, raced competitively, and managed to show a decent result despite a 10-second penalty received for violating yellow flag rules.

      "I think the most important thing is that Max is okay," Mekies said, according to the official championship website. "The crash was quite serious, and we were glad to see that he got out of the car on his own, was unharmed, and that's the main thing right now.

      Speaking of results, the weekend was very difficult. It seems we took a step back compared to the level we were at before the summer break.

      Of course, we don't know what the real pace of our car would have been during the race if Max hadn't retired, but we must admit that we faced more difficulties in every session than in Budapest, Spa, or Austria.

      We have work to do; we will regroup and analyze everything to find out if it is really just that our competitors are handling the upgrades better than us, or if there were other issues that hindered us in Zandvoort. We will focus on this during the two-week break between races, after which we will try to make a comeback in Monza."

      The head of Red Bull Racing also acknowledged that Liam Lawson performed well over the past weekend, even though he was driving the RB22 for the first time: "It's always challenging to come into another team, get behind the wheel of a different car, and race like that. But Liam handled it well. In qualifying, he was only one-tenth behind Max, and in the race, he earned points for 7th place, which corresponds to the car's capabilities.

      Isaac Hajar was also with us during the weekend, although he couldn't drive. But he tried to help the team gather as much information as possible so that we could perform as well as we could at the next stage in Monza."