According to Formula1News, Red Bull has said that the ‘negative comments’ regarding Max Verstappen’s technicality were the result of misinterpretation and misreporting by the media.
After remarks about Max Verstappen were misinterpreted on Eurosport’s French podcast “Les Fous du Volant,” Red Bull’s chief engineer, Paul Monaghan, swiftly addressed remarks made by the team’s Head of Driver Academy, Guillaume Rocquelin, before the Brazilian Grand Prix.
In the podcast, Rocquelin was reported as saying that the two-time World Champion is technically weak, but then the quotes were abruptly revised to state that the 25-year-old had “room to progress on technique.”
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Even after Eurosport’s revisions, the statement “Max is weak technically compared to other drivers we’ve worked with” appeared in most media reports. The Red Bull engineer addressed the media to clarify the mistranslated statements, in which he lauded the team’s number one driver.
Monaghan said: “If we may just correct some things, It was a poor translation from an interview from a colleague of mine. So it’s a little bit misquoted. However, to answer your question. Max is technically extremely gifted. He did a lot of work as a youngster, often guided by his father. And you can see the legacy of that.”
“He knows what he’s talking about within the car and he knows what he wants and with his engineers, they know how to deliver a car he finds nicely-balanced, easy to drive – well, not necessarily easy to drive but drivable – looks after its tyres well enough that he can manage a situation.
“And if you look at his record over the past seasons he’s been with us, it’s stunning. He wouldn’t achieve that if he wasn’t an exceptional driver. Can he improve? Yes, of course he can.
“He might not thank me for saying that. But I think there are areas he can get a little bit better. He’ll dig into himself and think what could he do better for a season. And it’s up to us to give him a car to go and demonstrate those skills next year.”
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In reaction to Monaghan’s claim that Verstappen’s father, ex-F1 racer Jos Verstappen, “guided” him, the 25-year-old recently told GQ Magazine that he learned a significant lot from his father and that racing is “not a joke.”
The Dutchman, who was voted GQ Magazine’s athlete of the year, added: “From 7 to 11 years old it intensified quite a lot, he wanted me to be there to see what he was doing,”
“‘Do you see a crack somewhere? Do you see a problem with the go-kart?’ I’d see him take everything off the go-kart, then put it back on, so I’d understand the mechanics behind it.
“All these kinds of things he was trying to explain to me because he wanted me to understand it’s not a joke, it’s not that we are here for fun, because we are working towards trying to reach the top.”