Max Verstappen denies Red Bull builds their cars to suit his driving style, a claim made by former driver Alex Albon.
It is well-known that Verstappen prefers a car set up on the nose, where he can point it at a corner and deal with any resultant oversteer, and that has been a trait that all Red Bull designs have strived to achieve.
But while Albon fully understands why that would be the case, he admits it makes life difficult for the second driver with himself, Pierre Gasly and Sergio Perez all struggling to match Verstappen.
“This isn’t to throw shade at anyone at Red Bull Racing or Max or anything, honestly,” the current Williams drivers told The Players’ Tribune.
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“But the car is set up in a unique way that is built around the lead driver, and that’s Max. And, look, I totally get why.
“I mean, when all is said and done, he might be the greatest driver of all time. But he has a very distinct style of driving, and he likes the car set up a certain way that’s hard for a lot of drivers to sync up with.
“Of course, you can tinker and tweak your own car, but just the Red Bull, in general, is suited to Max’s style.”
Verstappen though denies Red Bull’s current design philosophy is solely focused on him, claiming he too had to learn how to drive the cars optimally.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily just suited to my driving style,” he said during pre-season testing last week.
“As a driver, you need to adapt to what you get, and that’s also what I thought when I joined Red Bull because the car was always like that.
“It had a good front-end, but I have never experienced a fast car which has understeer in my life, in any category.
“For me, it’s nothing weird when it feels like the team is really pushing around my driving style,” he insisted.
“I feel like if people asked me ‘what is your driving style?’ I cannot tell you, because I always adapt to what I get in the best way possible.
“Sometimes it’s a bit harder than others, but I think that’s the key, you need to adapt. Every year, every track is different. That’s what you try to do best every time.”
Albon also made it clear his comment was not meant to detract from Verstappen’s skills behind the wheel.
“Being at 100%, every lap, all the time, is quite a unique ability,” he said.
“The way that he drives the car as well, it’s clearly quick but it’s not easy to drive and I’m sure you’ve heard that from a few people but it is true and I there are some drivers who possibly have been a bit more comfortable in different ways, he’s very adaptable in how we he can drive.
“I think there’s a very good connection with his engineers and with the people around him, you can see that he’s very at one with the car,” the British-Thai added.
“You can see that everything looks natural for him, when he’s driving it’s a very clean driving style. But I know that he’s obviously on the limit.”
