Former-Toro Rosso driver, Jaime Alguersuari, credits Adrian Newey as the brilliance behind Red Bull’s success, and not two-time champion Max Verstappen.
The reigning world champion currently leads the Championship by 99pts from his teammate but for the ex-F1 driver, these plaudits should go to the team’s long-serving top engineer Newey.
“It’s Newey.” Alguersuari said to AS.com. “It’s amazing that this brilliant gentleman is still making such perfect cars.
“Although I would say it’s not just him, but the team, in all its areas. Red Bull is the best team in the history of Formula 1 because they make no mistakes, there are no cracks in their structure and approaches. Everything fits.
“They never make mistakes, they nail the strategies, the tyre changes, the mechanics are the best in the paddock. Building a winning team is critical, it’s not just about making a great car.”
Alguersuari drove for Red Bull’s sister team between 2009 and 2011, racing in 46 Grands Prix and scoring 31 career points, before being replaced by Daniel Ricciardo for 2012 – despite scoring 26 of the team’s 41 points in 2011.
He said that Verstappen, however, is an exception to the rule by succeeding through the extreme pressure to deliver placed upon drivers by Helmut Marko.
“All of us who have been at Red Bull have been machines, that’s the school we had.” He added to AS.com. “Either you win or you die. It was all a matter of surviving or dying, and we all felt that maximum pressure from Dr. Marko.
“There were calls telling us, “If you don’t win the next race, you won’t run with us anymore.” We were always on a knife edge.
“His [Verstappen] father taught him how to win races, he has been trained in this way. There was no happiness. They [Jos Verstappen and Red Bull] pushed him so far that they ended up making a perfect driver.”
Verstappen flourishing
Verstappen has certainly survived the brutal selection process of Marko, that struck again as he dropped Nyck de Vries from the program after just 10 F1 races.
The reigning World Champion has dominated the sport of late, winning 23 out of the 32 races since the Bahrain Grand Prix in 2022.
He seldom stands off the podium, and when he does, it is usually because of an issue with reliability rather than speed.
The Dutchman continues to show a devastating combination of pace and consistency that shows no sign of releasing its stranglehold on the grid.
