Red Bull Silverstone
Red Bull Silverstone
To say Red Bull is one of the most interesting teams on the grid is an understatement. From having one of the brightest engineering minds on their team in Adrian Newey. To a polarizing star driver in Max Verstappen. And a team that may or may not be sabotaging Sergio Perez in his chances to beat their star driver.
And for today’s video, all 3 of them will be covered after yet another eventful week for the Milton Keynes team leading up to their home race in Silverstone. But before we get to it, consider subscribing to the channel as we upload 4 videos a week to make sure that you, our viewers are up to date on the latest happenings in the F1 space. Now that’s out of the way, let’s get to it…
Red Bull is home to Adrien Newey, the team’s Chief Technology Officer who is notorious for being the guy to turn to when it comes to aerodynamics. And on Thursday, Newey would work his magic once again on the RB18 with a new design to the car’s engine cover. The narrower hood will improve the airflow to the rear wing thus making the car more aerodynamically efficient than what it has been throughout the season.
And that is not the only thing Newey would have a say on. During the team interviews this Thursday, Newey would say that the team is looking for vengeance coming into Sunday’s race for what had happened to Max and the team last season. Christian Horner would also share the same thoughts as Newey saying:
“We’re going there fired up and trying to put right what happened last year,”
And while his team is fired up to make amends to what had happened last season, Max himself would be asked if he had any lingering anger from what happened last year. To this Max would reply with:
“Of course, the crash wasn’t nice, but I love the track. I love going there. It’s [a] really good atmosphere with Formula One, and we’re going really quick around there. So I don’t have any hard feelings. And I also think very easily I can put these things aside. Of course, it wasn’t nice what happened, but at the end of the day, you deal with it. It wasn’t a nice impact for me personally, but we go out there again and try to win of course.”
He would then be asked about his lead in the championship and if he feels like he is already a lock to win it. To this he would reply with:
I think it’s all about understanding the big picture as a group and as a team and that has helped me a lot – and guiding the direction of the car on my set-up and doing my own thing has helped me a lot. So there’s still a lot of work to be done and we can improve, so that’s what we are focusing on. So there’s still a lot of work to be done and we can improve, so that’s what we are focusing on. We know what we have with the car and [we will] just try to optimise everything. But also this is one track layout – there are so many different layouts you have to be good at.”
And while Max isn’t harboring any hard feelings over what had happened last year, that would not be the case for the fans at Silverstone who would boo Max once he made his appearance on the Sky Sports broadcast. This is obviously over the controversial title win by Max by hometown hero Lewis Hamilton.
And to compound on that, this past week Max’s soon-to-be father-in-law Nelson Piquet was condemned by the whole F1 community for using a derogatory term to describe Lewis in a tv interview he did in Brazil. Obviously, the media would pounce on this and ask Max on his thoughts on what had happened between the two. To this he would reply with:
“I think the wording that was used, even though of course with different kinds of cultures and things they said when they were little and younger, was not correct,” Verstappen said. Let it be a lesson for the future not to use that word, because it’s very offensive, and especially nowadays, it gains more traction.”
In the aftermath of the news, the FIA had decided to ban Piquet from the British Grand Prix. Max would also be asked if he thought this was a fair decision from the FIA, to which he would reply with:
“People of course label him as a racist now, which I don’t think he is, but I fully agree that you cannot use those words.” When you ban people, you are actually not even helping the situation, you are not talking,” Verstappen said. You have to communicate. Communication is really important, because if you just ban, it’s not helping what you’re trying to enforce. You’re trying to educate people. So it’s better to have a chat. As long as you learn from the mistake you made or the wording you used, I don’t think you should be banned from the paddock, especially a three-time world champion.”
Moving on to his teammate Sergio Perez, Perez has been quietly on Max’s tail in the drivers’ championship only trailing him by 41 points. As we all can remember, Perez’s last outing was cut short due to mechanical troubles on his car that led to him having to retire it. But coming into Silverstone, Perez is looking upbeat and excited to get racing saying:
“It hasn’t been nice to me the last races around the UK so I really hope that I’m able to put it together this weekend and get up on the podium here. We should be in a good place but we’ll see, I think definitely the competition will be close… and always with the weather here, it can play a big part!”
Perez would also share that he feels like he has finally settled down with the team and is now ready to take advantage of the team’s capabilities and the help he is receiving from the team saying:
Certainly, it always helps, the longer you spend with the team the better it gets in many regards – your confidence in the team, knowing the procedures, knowing how a team operates, how they think in terms of strategies, how they see the big picture. I think it’s all about understanding the big picture as a group and as a team and that has helped me a lot – and guiding the direction of the car on my set-up and doing my own thing has helped me a lot.”
But as Sergio is eager for a chance at redemption, former F1 Champion Damon Hill believes that Red Bull is secretly favoring Max to win it all, sighting the result in Canada as proof. In his words:
Max has found something because he dominated that weekend [in Canada] and with no sign of Sergio looking to be threatening. They’ve done something. I get the feeling they’ve done something to help him because he’s not the sort of person who would have taken being out-qualified by Sergio lying down. So I think that they’ve tried to work on giving him what he really needs. And it could be that they’ve helped the front end of the car. It looked like he got rid of some of that understeer, and it could do him wonders.”
Hill would also comment on as to what he thinks Red Bull’s advantage over the competition saying:
I used to call Williams an engineering team that went racing. Benetton were a race team that did engineering. There are two parts to this and Red Bull, to me, seem like a very sharp race team. They know they have had to fight tactically to get the advantage and they are very practiced and very good at looking at race strategy, reacting quickly, and having an alternative plan up their sleeves. The other teams aren’t as good as that. Mercedes have run at the front for so long, they haven’t had to think as inventively as Red Bull. I think Ferrari are in the same boat. They have focused so much on getting their car to be quick, they have not developed their race strategy as well as Red Bull. There’s not much in it – but it appears to me that Red Bull will sometimes take a chance and do something clever – like they did in Abu Dhabi [’21] – and the rest are a fraction of a second behind them.”
Red Bull will be looking to extend their lead further this Sunday to ensure their advantage in the coming summer break. But as always the team is surrounded by controversy so it will be interesting if both Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen will be able to tune out the noise and focus on what they have to do come race day.
But what do you think? Did Max do a well enough job in his comments about the Nelson Piquet situation? And is there any validity to what Damon Hill said about the team favoring Max to win? Let us know in the comment section below and as always don’t forget to like and subscribe to the channel if you haven’t!
