‘Grown up in the room’ identified during Red Bull in-fighting

The off-track distractions began even before the season began, in the aftermath of an internal investigation by Red Bull GmbH into allegations involving team boss Christian Horner.

Those allegations were later dismissed following two separate external KC investigations, but the season began under a cloud as Jos Verstappen – father of Max – voiced his displeasure with the situation by calling for Horner’s job.

With Verstappen himself caught in the middle of various flare-ups of the needle between his father and his team boss, tensions were exacerbated by the on-track performance of the Red Bull RB20 going awry as development went in the wrong direction.

By season end, harmony had largely been restored as Verstappen did manage to win another title as the Milton Keynes-based squad got a handle on its performance issues and rectified them enough to allow the Dutch driver to take his most critical win of the year in Brazil.

Having had such a difficult season straight after his all-conquering F1 2023 campaign, in which Verstappen won 19 of 23 races, Sky F1 broadcaster Ted Kravitz spoke glowingly about the performance the now-four-time F1 World Champion put in.

“He really won the championship in the first half of the season, didn’t he?” he said.

“Winning seven out of the first 10 races, and then Brazil and Qatar – two kind of knockout blows at the end.

“Judging by Brazil itself, that was worthy of a world championship itself, and the work he had to do in the factory to get the car back after the wrong direction that it took, and, at some points, having to be the adult in the room.

“When his dad was warring with his team boss, Helmut Marko was warring with other people, and there was an amount of unsettlement in Red Bull this year.

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“Through it all, Max often helped and was the grown-up in the room.

“Even though you look at 2023 and having to keep knocking in those wins – all but one of the races of the season in 2023 he won, and that must be pretty difficult, regardless of how good the car was – 2023 is some achievement but 2024 I think has to be the best, if not the best.”

With Verstappen clinching the title after weathering the pressure of having Lando Norris, in a faster and more versatile car, hunting him down in the Drivers’ Championship, Kravitz said it was indicative of how the Dutch driver has managed to win yet another title enduring a different type of pressure once again.

“A different Max Verstappen won the championship in a different way,” he said.

“Obviously, the domination of 2023, the not so good at the beginning but got better of 2022, and we know what happened in 2021 – so he won it in a different way.

“A bit calmer, maybe a bit more considered. He had to work harder at the factory, he said, than he ever had to before. A different kind of Formula 1 coming out of this season.”