Max Verstappen can enjoy the growth that the Red Bull Racing team has experienced. After Sebastian Vettel’s dominant period, the Austrian team was not competitive enough for a while to consistently fight for victories. Verstappen has never given up hope at Red Bull, but he did notice that it was a difficult period. At the moment it is of course very different for Verstappen and his team.
At the moment everything is going according to plan at Red Bull. “The car generally reacts very predictably,” Verstappen told De Telegraaf. That is the most important thing for a driver. That you sit down and everything feels very natural. I really enjoy working with this car.” Has the driver ever doubted whether Red Bull was the right team for him? “Let me say that over the years I have learned to be patient. It’s not always easy, but sometimes you have to be.’
‘I’ve always believed in this project, how the people work, how motivated they are and how they wanted to get back to the top’, continues the Dutchman. That way back up was certainly not without fits and starts. A championship was therefore not a realistic goal for Verstappen for quite some time. “At one point we were the third team on the grid. Then you can’t force it and say: we have to win now. It is now very easy to say that I saw it all coming. That’s nonsense.’
Verstappen: ‘At a certain point we became really competitive’
Yet Verstappen was on the podium often enough in the years of Mercedes dominance. There was often not much wrong with the design of the Red Bull car. “We’ve had years where our car was pretty good, but we lacked top speed. Then you saw the potential. Then Honda came in as an engine supplier and you have to rebuild a bit, but at some point we got really competitive. It’s nice to see the growth of the team,” concludes Verstappen.
