Verstappen retirement, Van der Garde stings: “Sabotage? No, but…”

Verstappen, unexpected breakdown

Only an extraordinary event seemed to be able to stop the new streak of successes of Max Verstappen, who before the Australian GP had conquered the top step of the podium in the previous nine races and in 19 of the last 20. Punctually, this event occurred: a right rear brake failure stopped the race of the RB20 #1, forcing the three-time world champion to retire for the first time after 43 races, always in the points.

The analyzes conducted by Red Bull have now certified that the fault originated from a 'trivial' human error. Helmut Marko, speaking on Austrian TV laola1declared that from what has emerged so far it was a “assembly problem“.

Van der Garde mischievous

However, the explanation has raised some doubts in the Netherlands, where Verstappen's sporting events have now become a matter of national interest for several years. The former Orange driver Giedo van der Gardeanalyzing the incident, suggested that the responsibility could also be linked to great internal chaos that has engulfed Red Bull in the last month. In his opinion, the internal wars on the Horner-Marko axis and the internal investigation against the team principal – which for the moment ended with no results – would have damaged the serenity of the working environment.

Spoken in the last episode of the podcast DRS: De Race Showhosted by Joost Hofman, van der Garde also dropped a few malicious allusion. “It's really strange that something like this happens to Red Bull – commented the 38 year old former Caterham driver – I'm not saying it was sabotagecertainly not, but when there is chaos in a team like that people can make mistakes”. However, confidence flows from Milton Keynes in view of the trip to Suzuka, where the reliability of the RB20 is expected to return to a high level.