Formula 1 returned to the site of its very first world championship race in 1950 as Silverstone hosted a memorable British Grand Prix last weekend.Charles Leclerc broke a 20-month win drought, but the race ended in confusion for fans after the safety car — which came out after a Max Verstappen spin with four laps remaining — led the drivers home with the initial message that the race would restart with one lap remaining rescinded.It was not only a tricky weekend for Verstappen. McLaren and Williams, two teams that have not been as competitive this year as in previous seasons, also struggled, and Mercedes’ world championship leader Kimi Antonelli missed out on a potential victory after an issue on his car struck in the closing stages.So, let’s get stuck into some of your questions after Sunday’s race. Here’s our latest F1 mailbag.Editor’s note: Questions have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.It would be nice to get a breakdown on Max’s crash. It looked odd, like when the turf monster grabs an athlete on the field, and uncharacteristic. — Anonymous U.In two consecutive races, Verstappen has crashed at a high-speed corner, though neither instance was his fault.The outcome may be the same, but the Dutchman said Sunday the reasons for the crashes were different, though still related to the rear wing. Like in Austria, it wouldn’t attach/close properly, which caused a loss of downforce and Verstappen to spin.He was third when he went into the gravel at the Stowe turn and proceeded to swear over the radio, saying, “I’m stuck, mate. F*** this car, f***! Unbelievable. F*** this.”“At that point it’s super dangerous, because you can really hurt yourself two times,” he said after the race when asked about his radio messages. “I was lucky in Austria, I was lucky here, but that’s why you get really fed up with it.”Across the entire weekend, Verstappen struggled. He pointed out how the car’s balance was “terrible” and had “no top speed” compared to the other Red Bull car. Matters were so bad that Verstappen wanted to start Sunday’s race from the pit lane so changes could be made.“It would be a very zen person to be optimistic at the moment with what’s happening again this weekend,” he said. “I’m sorry, but it’s just like that. I need a few days to reset and try again.”Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies said Verstappen was “right to be unhappy” but that he was confident the team could make sure this type of incident didn’t happen again.“From the early analysis, we have suffered a different type of failure,” said Mekies. “It doesn’t make it better, but it is clear that, in front of the succession of events, whether or not the failure is different, that doesn’t really matter.“We are going to review the full area to make sure we leave zero chance for that to happen again.”Madeline ColemanWhat has gone wrong at Williams? I thought James Vowles would be a good choice to run the team, but they seem to be going backwards. Are they still digging out of the funding gaps from the previous owner (not Claire Williams’ fault IMO), or do the new owners not want to make the necessary investments? Or something else? — JamesThis season was always earmarked by Williams and its team principal, James Vowles, as the year it could take a big step forward. Instead, the British team has slid down the grid.Williams outstripped expectations last year with its fifth-place finish in the constructors’ championship and pair of podiums for Carlos Sainz. Retaining that spot at the top of the midfield this year was a natural target, only for winter production delays leaving the team on the back foot.Vowles has highlighted how Williams is still putting in place new structures and processes at its facility. The owners have invested (and continue to invest) plenty of money into the team, and have made clear there’s no intention of selling.Carlos Sainz is concerned by the growing gap between Williams and the teams ahead. (Peter Powell / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)It’s not made this season an easy one to digest, nor has there been the progress the team would have desired. After crossing the line 12th Sunday, Sainz explained his concern about the growing margin to the teams ahead.“We’ve shed a lot of weight out of the car by now, but the gap to the front keeps increasing and the gap to the middle keeps increasing,” said Sainz. “We don’t seem to be finding the lap time that we expected in the weekend.”He admitted to feeling “worried” that the new front wing hadn’t made much of an impact.“We’re having serious issues when developing this car and we’re not bringing the performance that we thought we were,” he added.Vowles explained Friday that Williams was working on “one big upgrade” — similar to Aston Martin — that is essentially a B-spec car. And if Sainz’s comments are anything to go by, a lot is on its success to prove the team has remedied those issues with car development in 2026.Luke SmithMcLaren looks completely lost out there. It seems to have been overtaken by Red Bull as the third-fastest team. Is there a major upgrade incoming and when? — Rafi H.To put it simply, things aren’t fabulous over at McLaren.As mentioned in the post-Austrian GP mailbag, the team is “at least two months of development” behind the other teams, according to team boss Andrea Stella, who was speaking after qualifying at Red Bull Ring. That’s not something that can be fixed overnight, as upgrades take weeks and months, and a development war is unfolding among the frontrunners.Lando Norris went as far as to say it’s “not a nice car to drive, maybe one of the hardest cars I’ve ever driven in Formula 1.” When asked whether the performance was track-specific, last year’s champion pointed out how McLaren has been slow all year.Oscar Piastri felt it wasn’t temperature-specific but that they did struggle in the windy conditions — though with the caveat “it seemed like it just spread everyone out.” But the assessment of McLaren sitting around third or fourth fastest is fair.“We’re the third or fourth quickest car but, in the right conditions, with good starts, we can get ourselves in the fight,” the Australian driver continued, “almost punching above our weight.”Oscar Piastri was 11th in the British Grand Prix. (Peter Powell / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)Stella believed McLaren was about half a second behind Ferrari and Mercedes but that the team’s “pace with Red Bull was closer.” When looking at the overall performance profile, he ranked the contributing factors in order of importance, starting with how McLaren is “out of sync with upgrades.” But the second factor sounded more track-specific, given Silverstone’s nature.“Here, the grip is very low, the conditions are difficult, the car slides, it’s quite unpredictable with the wind, and there’s a premium on cars that have more grip and more downforce, because the car is just a little bit easier to predict,” Stella said.McLaren is a customer team of Mercedes and buys its engine from Mercedes High Performance Powertrains (HPP). Reliability issues with the Mercedes engine have impacted the Silver Arrows and its customer teams.“We’ve been affected by battery problems, some other teams by ICE [engine] problems,” Stella said. “They are running as fast as they can, making it difficult for them to carry forward all the fixes — even the allocation of the power units based on the mileage per car — because it looks like here we are not on the latest specification. Alpine and Williams have accrued more mileage than us, and they were more in need of upgrading the engine.”Upgrades are in the works and will be brought in for the Hungary Grand Prix at the end of this month, Stella confirmed Saturday at Silverstone.He anticipated the Belgian Grand Prix on July 19 would be a difficult race for McLaren, but the Hungarian GP immediately follows it and is the last race weekend before the summer shutdown.Madeline ColemanThis is my first real season following F1 — why didn’t they fight out the last lap? I certainly shared in the boos of the crowd, that seemed like an epic build-up. — Brady F.Ending the race under a safety car is shameful. Perhaps F1 should consider something akin to stoppage time. Even if it’s a single lap. Surely they could account for a touch more fuel to get them around the track one more time. — AnonymousThe end of the British GP left a sour taste for many fans. After the initial ‘safety car ending’ message was shown the TV graphics, teasing a restart on Lap 52, which would have made the race a last-lap shootout, the safety car continued around to begin the final lap.On the race control messaging system, the initial ‘safety car in this lap’ message was quickly followed by another reading ‘safety car deployed,’ indicating the race would not be restarting as planned. It took a bit longer for this to make it onto the TV graphic, making for a confusing watch.The British Grand Prix ended with a safety car leading the drivers home. (Clive Rose /Getty Images)According to the FIA, the ‘safety car in this lap’ message was displayed in error. Although the track had been cleared after Verstappen’s crash, cars had been instructed to lap themselves, after which there must be one extra lap completed behind the safety car.Essentially, what happened at Silverstone is what should have happened under the rulebook at Abu Dhabi in 2021.As for a stoppage-time pause to ensure we finish under a green flag, a cleaner way than having an ‘extra’ lap could be writing into the regulations that there must be a mandatory red flag if there is a safety car within a certain number of laps of the finish. That way, we’d get at least one final lap of action. But that’s just me thinking aloud and, personally, trying to ‘force’ through a green-flag finish feels a bit artificial.“Nobody can plan for somebody to have an incident,” George Russell said after the race. “The way F1 deals with it and FIA deals with it shouldn’t be any different at the end of the race compared to the start of the race.”Luke Smith