Now everyone is criticizing Max Verstappen: he is no longer driving a spaceship and is still going strong, no doubt about it; but that little tendency to the vein that closes (we were talking about it a few days ago …) has dramatically returned to take over.
All true, all undeniable. And he, especially now that he is a three-time world champion, should get a grip. But do we want to try to read Red Bull’s responsibilities too?
It’s too early to ring the bells in mourning, but if three clues start to make a proof, this Red Bull is a pale copy of the one that last year won all the races except one. Blame (recently) on developments brought to the track from Europe onwards and clearly less efficient than what would have been necessary to keep the scepter. The developments, after all, are not guaranteed to work. Ferrari knows something about it, overwhelmed by McLaren and now also Mercedes in a chase for Red Bull in which they now have the wind in their sails. But even the can team has stumbled into the same problem. And this is the first of the three clues.
The second: the team seems to be on the verge of implosion. Because if making a mistake in a development, or in any case being overtaken on the right by someone who has worked better than you, is normal, the conversations in the broadcasting world on Sunday in Budapest are simply not worth commenting on. Max was certainly unpleasant with his ‘your sh** strategy’, but calling him a capricious child could have been avoided. After all, he is the driver who takes risks, who sweats, who has to invent something in shreds of a second and has millions of eyes on him digging into his replays, in shots from every possible and imaginable angle.
And if someone like Max’s engineer, Lambiase, historically a strong point, loses his temper, it means that there is much more than a bad day.
But ultimately the team is now leading the World Championship despite practically racing with only one driver (Verstappen, precisely). And in the Drivers’ Championship the situation is no different. So why all this tension? We could be wrong, but everything suggests that the resentment left by the scandals at the beginning of the season (the famous WhatsApp messages with photos included, Horner-gate, the acquittal and the many warmongering dialectical exchanges) are leaving their mark.
Third clue: who is now in charge of pulling the chestnuts out of the fire? Who will take charge of this single-seater suddenly stuck in a situation that only three months ago seemed like science fiction? Will it be the job of Adrian Newey, an incomparable genius who also resigned? Will it be Pierre Waché, an engineer recently promoted but ignorant of design and calculation? Or will it be one of the many technicians who every other day are on the cover as possible departures for Mercedes, Aston Martin, Ferrari?
In all this growing hubbub, Christian Horner’s silence screams. Will he have the situation under control?
In short, the Bull, more than Red, seems chained. Who, what, when, how will loosen the bonds?
#Chained #Bull #FormulaPassion.it
