Amid suggestions that Max Verstappen’s Formula 1 cars are built to suit his needs by Red Bull, the Dutchman has asserted that he too must adapt to their behaviour.
Three-time Formula 1 World Champion Max Verstappen has asserted that he must adapt to the cars that are built by Red Bull.
Verstappen has enjoyed a dominant two seasons in F1, winning 77 per cent of Grands Prix staged across the 2022 and 2023 campaigns.
It has led to suggestions that Red Bull has been constructing its car to suit the Dutchman’s driving style, particularly after teammates Sergio Perez, Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly have struggled to get near his pace in previous years.
Verstappen brushed away claims that the challengers are built for his needs and insisted that he too must learn to adapt to the behaviour of the car.
“When people ask you: ‘What is your driving style?’, I can’t tell you because it’s about being able to adapt to certain situations or what the car likes as well,” Verstappen told Motorsport.com.
“What do I want? I want more grip. There’s a lot of things that you want, some things are not realistic. So, I just adapt to the car that I get given.”
Development direction
Verstappen enjoyed a historically dominant F1 season last year, winning 19 out of the 22 races staged – a new record for the sport.
The Dutchman provided an insight into Red Bull’s development philosophy as he highlighted that adding speed takes priority over finding a suitable balance.
“Throughout the year, the team just applies upgrades to the car to make it faster. Not to try and follow a certain balance direction or whatever,” he said.
“It’s just overall load, overall grip, that you gain from upgrades. I’m quite happy with the behaviour of the car, but if the car is a little bit more understeery I have to adapt my driving to that. Or if it’s more oversteery it’s the same way.
“I think it’s been quite okay. Some races anyway you have more oversteer or more understeer.
“It’s very up and down in terms of balance, it’s not always on the nose. Some tracks you cannot run it like that.”
