Red Bull’s departing chief technical officer Adrian Newey believes that SKY F1’s “nationalistic” approach to its coverage of Formula 1 led to a “demonisation” of the team’s two world champions, Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel.
The pair delivered an aggregate seven world Driver titles to the Milton Keynes-based outfit, but while their achievements are remarkable, their popularity with F1’s fan community at large has often been disputed.
Newey suggests that a bias in the British media, at Sky in particular, led to a negative portrayal that skewed international perceptions of the two great drivers.
“From the outside I’m not sure people fully appreciate and understand Max, just like they didn’t with Sebastian,” Newey told the High Performance podcast.
“Because first of all, there’s a sort of demonisation that both of them suffered at times which I think’s very unfair.
“Maybe that’s also a little bit of the British media, if I’m honest, Sky have a huge influence around the world, their viewing is truly international but their coverage is quite nationalistic, dare I say, and that can have an influence.”
Red Bull’s displeasure with of Sky F1’s coverage, and more specifically its on-air claim that Lewis Hamilton had been robbed of the 2021 world title won by Verstappen, led to the team boycotting the broadcaster’s reporters during the 2022 Mexican Grand Prix weekend.
Expanding on Verstappen, Newey believes the Dutchman’s abilities behind the wheel are undervalued, the future Aston Martin managing technical partner drawing a comparisons with how Fernando Alonso, whom he will soon work with at Team Silverstone.
“It almost feels as if [Verstappen] can drive the car automatically,” said Newey.
“He doesn’t of course, but he can drive the car and have so much processing power left over that he can then think a lot about how he is driving the car, how he is looking after the tyres, what he might need to do in the settings or if he’s not sure, ask [his race engineer] on the radio what he should be doing, but highlighting the problems.
“Reading the race still fascinates me – Fernando is another one that can do that, he seems to be able to read the race but [they] haven’t got all the stuff in front of them.”
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