F1 Racing - UK (2020-03)

GPRACING MARCH 2020 63

WORDSBEN ANDERSON ANDRED BULL CONTENT POOL

SIGNED,

SEALED

AND READY

TO DELIVER

MaxVerstappenand Red Bull

surprised everyone by committing

pen to paper on a lucrative new

contract before any 2020 F1 cars

turned a wheel. Here, weget to

grips withexactly why both parties

took the sting out of F1’s annual

driver-market ‘silly season’ well

before the actual racing began

PICTURES

I think it’s a very exciting project.

Everybody is looking inthe same direction, everybodywants the

same thing –everybody wants towin, everybody in the team are

winners. You can feel that mentality is there. I think the team is

definitely coming on very strong.”

When Max Verstappen spoke these words to us in late August,

2019, it seemed like the sort of carefully considered banality you

would expe ct any contracted Formula 1 driver to say about their

current team. At the time, speculation Max would refuse to see out

the final year of his Red Bull contract and make a sensational switch

to Mercedes had just been quashed by Toto Wolff’s decision to retain

Valtteri Bottas and farm Esteban Ocon out to Renault. Max would

be staying put after all.

Red Bull had been onthis rodeo before, of course, offering

Verstappen a highly lucrative contract – understood to have made

“I AM VERY HAPPY AT THE MOMENT WHERE I AM BECAUSE

GPRACING MARCH 2020 63

WORDSBEN ANDERSON ANDRED BULL CONTENT POOL

SIGNED,

SEALED

AND READY

TO DELIVER

MaxVerstappenand Red Bull

surprised everyoneby committing

pen to paper on a lucrative new

contract before any 2020 F1 cars

turned a wheel. Here, weget to

grips withexactly why both parties

took the sting out of F1’s annual

driver-market ‘silly season’ well

before the actual racing began

PICTURES

I think it’s a very exciting project.

Everybody is looking inthe same direction, everybodywants the

same thing –everybody wants towin, everybody in the team are

winners. You can feel that mentality is there. I think the team is

definitely coming on very strong.”

When Max Verstappen spoke these words to us in late August,

2019, it seemed like the sort of carefully considered banality you

would expe ct any contracted Formula 1 driver to say about their

current team. At the time, speculation Max would refuse to see out

the final year of his Red Bull contract and make a sensational switch

to Mercedes had just been quashed by Toto Wolff’s decision to retain

Valtteri Bottas and farm Esteban Ocon out to Renault. Max would

be staying put after all.

Red Bull had been onthis rodeo before, of course, offering

Verstappen a highly lucrative contract – understood to have made

“I AM VERY HAPPY AT THE MOMENT WHERE I AM BECAUSE