Red Bull technical director Adrian Newey is convinced that Max Verstappen must already be considered one of the all-time greats and explains why that is necessary
Max Verstappen claimed his tenth consecutive victory at last weekend’s Formula One race in Monza. In total, his Red Bull racing team has won all 14 races of the 2023 season so far in the process.
The Dutchman and his team are well on their way to adding two more world titles to their, and more importantly, chief designer Adrian Newey’s personal record. The latter also includes successes with Williams and McLaren. Newey believes Verstappen must be counted among the best of all time on the way to his third title.
“Max is clearly one of the all-time greats and he’s at the peak of his game,” “Since he won the championship in 2021, it’s taken a lot of pressure off him and his racing has got a lot better as a result.”
“He’s totally in tune with the car. With Max it’s like the greats: You get the impression that he drives the car almost on automatic, so he has the overview to think about everything.”
Newey admits that the 2023 season is special even for him, despite having experienced some dominant years in his career with drivers such as Nigel Mansell at Williams and Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull.
“For both the driver and the team to achieve this level of consistency and reliability is fantastic,” says the Briton.
“I have never in my career been involved with a team that has won the first 13 races,” Newey said ahead of Monza. “In the past it might have been the first six or so, but never anything like this. The funny thing is that I’ve been in a situation like this before, where you don’t consciously do anything different, but everything just falls into place.”
Asked if Red Bull would cut back on developing the car for 2023 so that others could catch up in the second half of the season, Newey says: “Possibly. I would imagine most teams are well into next year now.”
“How much development other teams have to do between now and the end of the year? I don’t know. For us, it’s clear that we’re focused on next year now. “