Newey: Verstappen has matured into a great racer

Sunday, 08 August 2021 at 10:43

Adrian Newey has heaped lavish praise on Max Verstappen amid a daunting helping of bad luck thrust at Red Bull and the Dutch driver in the last two Grand Prix races.

Ahead of last month's British Grand Prix, Verstappen led the 2021 Formula 1 world championship standings by 32 points over Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton, but two races since then the Red Bull ace has been relegated to second place by eight points.

The first lap incident at Silverstone and the damage caused to his car after Valtteri Bottas slammed his Mercedes into a bunch of rivals, has Verstappen in the all too familiar role of chasing again.

From the pit garage, Red Bull tech boss Newey has obviously been privy to Verstappen at work and is hugely impressed: "He has that same steely grit that a world champion needs, to dig in and keep going in the face of adversity. His driving ability is obviously superb."

This is from Newey who has worked with the likes of Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Mika Hakkinen, Sebastian Vettel to name some of the greats, and would know a thing or two about genius-level talent.

Speaking on the Talking Bull podcast, Newey continued on the Max subject: "On top of that he’s matured into a great racer. He’s not made any mistakes this year but has had three DNFs through no fault of his own, but he kept his head and bounced back from all of those.

"His feedback is also great. You get some drivers who talk endlessly, finishing with the first phase of entry into turn one and finishing with the exit in the last corner."

"I think Max has got a very good balance of concentrating on the key parts that he needs to make the car go faster," explained Newey.

After the Austria double-header, there appeared to be no stopping Red Bull, but Silvcerstone and Hungaroring were lessons on how championships are lost. The reality for them is that the once healthy points lead they enjoyed in both title races, have been eroded.

Newey revealed that there is "lots of pressure at the moment" in the Red Bull camp, and added: "Obviously, the last couple of races have been very painful for us having had that sweet spot in the triple-header. To be taken out in two races and finish with almost zero points out of those is just painful and just highlights how quickly things can change really.

"From everything looking very good, particularly after the second Austria race with a decent points lead and then two races later, we are slightly behind in both. I think that is the nature and the tightness of the competition we are in.

"We have just got to keep our heads down and keep pushing," insisted Newey whose Red Bull 16B is looking like a proper title winner, in the mould of the ten F1 world championship cars he designed: