Adrian Newey, who turned 65 on Boxing Day, shed light on why he rates Max Verstappen among the best of the great drivers he has worked with during his illustrious career.
Red Bull's design guru listing the strengths (too long to make a headline of them!) that make Red Bull's triple Formula 1 World Champion special.
F1 legends who have won World Championship titles driving Nerwey masterpieces include Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Damon Hill, Jacques Villeneuve, Mika Hakkinen, Sebastian Vettel and most recently Verstappen.
Speaking to BBC late last month, when asked about the Dutchman's strengths, Newey ventured: "I have been fortunate enough to have worked with several great drivers and while their personalities can be significantly different in how they conduct themselves.
"Their approach to little things like debriefs after each session. The thing they all have in common is the ability to drive the car with a lot of mental reserves left. They are able to drive the car with enough capacity left over to think about how they are using the tyres, how the race is unfolding when to push when to not push.
"More, of course, now in particular with these cars, how to adjust the electronics settings to suit the handling of the car as it develops through the race. Max is quite exceptional at that," revealed Newey.
At his age and with so much achieved in F1, is retirement on his mind? Newey replied: "Retirement is a funny thing, isn't it? If you'd asked me when I was 50 if I would still be working now, I would have said: No, absolutely not! And then, of course, things come up, and you think: I'm actually enjoying it and what else would I do?"
Newey: I'd get bored lying on a beach
The Red Bull chief technical officer continued: "Two of the people I most respect are Bernie Ecclestone and Roger Penske, both of whom are still working at quite a ripe old age and are still very mentally agile. I asked both of them, because I know both of them reasonably well, what's their secret?
"And they both said: 'Don't stop working. Think of your brain as a muscle that needs exercise.' And I do agree with that from other observations. "Unfortunately, my father retired at 65, and kind of ended up a little bit lost afterwards, I suppose. I don't think he'd mind me saying that. So I am conscious of all these things.
"Equally, F1 is a very involving sport. I still love it. I have been fortunate enough to be doing what I wanted to do from about the age of 10 - ie be an engineer in motor racing - so while I still enjoy it, I would like to still be involved."
Apart from the abovementioned World Champions Newey has worked during his F1 career, which began straight out of the University of Southampton with the Fittipaldi F1 Team under Harvey Postlethwaite in 1980, he does have a couple of wishes.
"Well, clearly first and foremost to have had a longer relationship with Ayrton," said Newey of the late great Ayrton Senna who was killed in a Williams designed by the Briton.
"In terms of drivers, Fernando [Alonso] is one. That's a regret that that never happened because I have a tremendous respect for Fernando. I just feel tremendously lucky to have had the opportunities I've had and to have worked with the people I have done and met the people I have done," concluded Newey.
StatsF1 show that Newey-designed cars collectively won 25 F1 World Championship titles, thus far.
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