Red Bull design guru Adrian Newey revealed the Max Verstappen has actually brake-tested Lewis Hamilton at the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
At the time, Verstappen was asked to allow Hamilton to overtake him after the former cut the corner trying to overtake, in what was one of the most dramatic of showdowns between the two drivers in 2021. That incident followed another in Brazil, when the Dutchman was defending from the Briton and pushed him off the track at Turn four.
Reflecting on Verstappen’s qualities as a Formula 1 driver, Newey said: “What’s great about Max is you always know what the car’s capable of because he always gets in it and wrings its neck.
“His feedback is good, he’s very aware of what the tyres are doing and how to manage them. I think his reputation for being wild is unfair,” the Briton insisted.
Copse corner incident a professional foul by Hamilton
Before Saudi Arabia and Brazil, came the famous incident at Copse at the 2021 British Grand Prix at Silverstone, when Hamilton punted Verstappen into the barriers at high speed, not to forget the pair’s Monza altercation where the #33 Red Bull ended up on top of the #44 Mercedes.
“Probably what he did in Brazil last year was a bit naughty,” Newey said of the 2021 F1 Champion’s defending tactics in Sao Paulo.
“Saudi was silly but I think he got frustrated with Lewis not overtaking him but he still shouldn’t have brake-tested him,” he added.
“But Silverstone to me was a clear professional foul [by Hamilton] and people seem to have a short memory,” the Red Bull design boss insisted.
“They brand an individual and it takes time for that to go. He’s very easy to work with, very open. You ask him to do things and he’ll always try,” he explained.
Newey didn’t see the Mercedes sidepod concept coming
Adrian Newey, who has built Championship winning F1 cars for Williams and McLaren in addition to Red Bull, is famous for being able to understand new regulations, always reading between their lines, and finding with loopholes which enable him to come up with novel ideas on his cars.
“I do enjoy reg changes but when I first saw these regs I was quite depressed by them,” he said of the 2022 regulations.
“At first sight, they appear to be very prescriptive. But as you dig into it more then – particularly in the area of the sidepod and floor – there’s actually a reasonable degree of freedom. More than you first think,” Newey claimed.
“The chassis is near enough designed for you by the regulations, the front wing quite prescriptive. Front and rear suspension, although there is some prescription on the angles, in terms of layout there’s still some freedom. As we got into it and realised that, then I’m not surprised there’s been a reasonable diversity of shapes.
“I certainly didn’t see the Mercedes sidepod solution coming,” the F1 designer admitted. “The other cars, the broad differences in sidepod shape have not completely surprised me.”
Red Bull knew “porpoising” was a problem
Red Bull’s RB18 is one of the cars on the 2022 F1 grid that least suffers from “porpoising”, and Newey was one of the few people in the F1 paddock today that has been around the latest era of ground effect cars, so is that the reason the energy drinks outfit do not suffer as much from bouncing,
“We knew it was a potential problem,” the Chief Technical Officer said. “The LMP cars had it for a very long time. It’s a very well-known problem.
“If you have an aero map which as you get closer to the ground generates more downforce eventually the flow structure breaks down and loses downforce, then it’s going to porpoise,” he explained.
“With these regs you could see that was a possibility but whether they would and how you model that, was the difficulty.
“It was a bit of using experience as to what the causes of porpoising might be and trying to be mindful of that but at the same time we didn’t find a way of modelling it properly. In principle, you could do it in the windtunnel.”
Asked about Ferrari, who suffer from bouncing at the end of the straights yet remain competitive Newey said: “I guess they feel that’s the fastest way round, so you trade a bit of driver comfort and initial braking performance.”
Asked if his team have entertained that option he responded: “No, your set-up is driven by your aero map so what works on one won’t work on another car.”
Adrian Newey was speaking in a thorough and recent interview with The Race, ahead of the 2022 Miami Grand Prix.