Outgoing Red Bull Chief Technical Officer Adrian Newey has claimed the British media’s Formula 1 television coverage caused the “demonisation” of Max Verstappen.
Verstappen was involved in a close title battle with Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in 2021 which saw a war of words ensue between the two camps amid several clashes.
The contest would go down right to the wire as a mishandled Safety Car restart at the final round in Abu Dhabi saw Verstappen complete a contentious last-lap move.
Verstappen went on to use that success as a springboard to capitalise on Red Bull’s pre-eminence upon a regulation switch to dominate the two succeeding seasons.
However, Red Bull decided to boycott Sky’s coverage at the 2022 Mexican Grand Prix over the broadcaster’s comments about Verstappen’s maiden championship win.
Newey has contended that Sky holding the rights as F1’s global television broadcaster contributed to both Verstappen and also Sebastian Vettel becoming villainized.
“From the outside I’m not sure people fully appreciate and understand Max, just like they didn’t with Sebastian,” Newey told High Performance.
“Because first of all, there’s a sort of demonisation that both of them suffered at times which I think’s very unfair.
“Maybe that’s also a little bit of the British media, if I’m honest, Sky have a huge influence around the world.
“Their viewing is truly international but their coverage is quite nationalistic, dare I say, and that can have an influence.”
However, Newey has conceded that Verstappen’s on-track conduct in Brazil could’ve been penalised as he began to crack under pressure in the closing races in 2021.
The Dutchman escaped punishment at the Interlagos track when he drove arch-rival Hamilton wide at Subido do Lago to deny the Briton from overtaking his Red Bull.
“In reality he was probably lucky not to get a penalty from his driving in Brazil,” he acknowledged.
“In Saudi Arabia they had a bit of a ding-dong that was a little bit more – I think that was not clear, but Max was probably a bit out of order in Brazil in truth.
“So I think he was feeling it a bit. And indeed Checo [Perez], it’s the usual thing, if the team mate that they’ve been beating suddenly starts to get closer, it’s not that suddenly the team mate’s got better. It was the same with Fernando and Felipe Massa towards the end of 2010, suddenly they get closer because the lead driver is feeling the pressure.”
But Newey thinks Verstappen’s capabilities in the car are underestimated and compared how he operates to Fernando Alonso, who he will work with at Aston Martin.
“It almost feels as if [Verstappen] can drive the car automatically,” he assessed.
“He doesn’t, of course, but he can drive the car and have so much processing power left over that he can then think a lot about how he is driving the car, how he is looking after the tyres, what he might need to do in the settings or if he’s not sure, ask [his race engineer] on the radio what he should be doing, but highlighting the problems.
“Reading the race still fascinates me – Fernando is another one that can do that, he seems to be able to read the race but [they] haven’t got all the stuff in front of them.”
