Aston Martin’s new hire recalls the Formula 1 showdown between Red Bull and Mercedes at Abu Dhabi in 2021, believing the German marque was too affected psychologically.
Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton entered a winner-takes-all grudge match in the final race of the hotly contested 2021 season.
With just a handful of laps remaining, the race and title looked to be going in Hamilton’s favour, until a Safety Car period allowed Verstappen to pit for fresh tyres.
Racing was resumed in a controversial fashion (depending on which fandom you talk to) paving the way for a Verstappen title victory that Newey believes Mercedes didn’t recover from appropriately.
“I think it got to Mercedes,” he told the High Performance podcast.
“Instead of saying ‘OK, we will accept it and move on’ it started to affect their psyche which is an interesting one.
“That’s from the outside. I could be completely wrong. They couldn’t let it go psychologically.
“If you have a bad race, perhaps you should have won and the bloody thing broke down on the last lap or whatever. I always had a personal issue. I will be horrible to be around any airport on that Sunday evening but come Monday morning I need to wake up and be back on it.
“I can’t go into the factory all miserable and downbeat. Part of my position I suppose is to help and hopefully motivate everybody not saying it’s ‘so unfair, we were robbed’. It doesn’t help, does it?”
The discourse surrounding that fateful race at the Yas Marina circuit raged on for some time after the ’21 finale and in some ways continues to this day.
Intriguingly, the championship showdown represented a changing of the guard between Red Bull and Mercedes, with the latter’s dominance coming to a swift conclusion with the arrival of the 2022 ground effect regulations.
Meanwhile, Red Bull strode to two world championship doubles in 2022 and ’23 at a canter.
In 2024, the pendulum has swung back and forth between the two squads, with Red Bull’s early season dominance waning as it has developed itself into a problematic situation with the RB20 and Mercedes vaulting itself back into contention with three Grand Prix victories across the summer months.
Newey’s place in all of this is also questioned, given the news in May that he would leave Red Bull ahead of the 2025 season getting underway.
On Tuesday, the world learned he will take his services to Aston Martin as its Managing Technical Partner.
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