Critics of Red Bull anger Verstappen
Date published:
December 31 2020
Max Verstappen says that it makes him angry when people harshly criticise Red Bull for not taking the fight to Mercedes.
The German team has been the dominant force in Formula 1 since the start of 2014, winning every Driver’s and Constructors’ Championship since.
With Ferrari dropping off, the task of challenging them fell solely to
Red Bull in 2020, but not quickly became clear that once again, they hadn’t built a car capable of doing so.
Nevertheless, Verstappen feels that there was no sense in dwelling on his disappointment in that, and is angered by those who are so critical of his team.
Kimi doesn’t get quali/race set-up debate
Date published:
December 31 2020
Kimi Raikkonen doesn’t understand why teams and drivers get caught up with whether to set their cars up for qualifying or the race.
It’s common in Formula 1 for drivers to speak about how they have set their cars up for the race to chase the best possible performance, or for qualifying because they want to start from as high up the grid as possible.
But, Raikkonen has never understood this, saying there is no “magic” involved and picking one or the other makes no difference.
“It isn’t magic. I mean, people always ask ‘why don’t you put more emphasis on qualifying than on racing on the set-up side’, but in the end, what I’ve discovered over the last – I don’t know – 10 years is that there is no difference,” he is quoted by Motorsport.com.
Bottas too ‘crap’ at Sakhir GP for Russell comparison
Date published:
December 30 2020
Red Bull driver programme boss Helmut Marko said Valtteri Bottas was too “crap” at the Sakhir GP to make a true comparison to George Russell.
Russell was drafted in to make his Mercedes debut at the Sakhir Grand Prix as a replacement to Lewis Hamilton who tested positive for COVID-19 prior to the race weekend.
And it was a standout display from Russell who qualified P2, only 0.026s slower than Bottas, before taking the lead from his team-mate at Turn 1 on the opening lap.
Ultimately a botched Mercedes pit stop and later a low puncture cost Russell what looked set to be his first win in Formula 1.