The Italian Grand Prix resulted in a dominant victory for Max Verstappen, at the track where Red Bull struggled massively last year and where Verstappen described the car as “a monster”. Twelve months on reality looked very different, helped by a specific low-downforce rear wing, a fresh Honda power unit and above all a slightly different approach to the race weekend.
“The car worked perfectly this time, the strategy was good, so everything was fine,” Helmut Marko said in the Monza paddock post-race. “And Max was sovereign, besides that first corner. To win with 20 seconds’ margin on McLaren, that’s a real achievement.”
Red Bull’s motorsport advisor was the first one to predict that a victory was on the cards for Red Bull in Italy. The gathered media looked at the Austrian in shock after he made that bold prediction on Friday, but post-race Marko smiled: “You’re always shocked when I say something!”
Red Bull no longer “blindly” following the simulator
On a more serious note, Marko explained that the team’s approach heading into race weekends had changed after the summer break: “The difference is that the preparation of a weekend is a different one now.
“Laurent is an excellent engineer, so now the idea is more to take whatever the simulation shows us, but mix that with the experience that Max has and with the experience that our racing engineers have. That’s how we want to make a car that is more predictable and drivable.
“This is the product of that. Basically, it’s the same product as we had before, just some upgrades were coming and they are working. But 20 seconds on McLaren, I wouldn’t have predicted that.”
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Helmut Marko, Red Bull Racing, Laurent Mekies, Red Bull Racing Team Principal
Photo by: Mark Thompson / Getty Images
When Marko speaks of a new philosophy, it relates back to Zandvoort. “I’ve already said in Budapest that we knew what we did wrong, unfortunately we couldn’t change it any more. But in Zandvoort it was shown that the direction we are going into is the right one. Zandvoort was never our circuit, and we were lucky with second place there, but third was a secured spot for us, and we developed from there. Last year we were 40 seconds behind the winner in Monza, and back then we had a monster.”
Verstappen played a key role in finding – and sticking with – the right set-up, although Marko added that the arrival of Laurent Mekies has made a difference as well.
“The engineers are listening more to the drivers now. If you have such a fast and experienced driver, I think that’s the right way to do it. He has to drive the car anyway. And in the end it was important that our top speed improved,” said Marko, noting that Verstappen himself chose to stick with the low-downforce configuration going into qualifying, despite some differing opinions within the team. “We saw that we could drive away from the McLarens. The driver’s input was recognised.”
In that sense, Marko sees great value in Mekies, with whom Verstappen can talk on a more technical level: “The whole technical team is more open now and they discuss things. They are not blindly taking what the simulation says.”
Verstappen is just as positive about Red Bull’s new approach to race weekends, and building his relationship with Mekies.
“Up until now we’ve had a lot of races where we were just shooting left and right a little bit with the set-up of the car. Quite extreme changes, which shows that we were not in control,” Verstappen explained. “We were not fully understanding what to do. With Laurent having an engineering background, he’s asking the right questions to the engineers – common-sense questions – so I think that works really well.
“Plus, you try to learn from the things that you have tried. At one point some things give you a bit of a direction, and that’s what we kept working on. I definitely felt that in Zandvoort we already took a step that seemed to work quite well, and another step here, which again felt a little bit better.”
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Formula 1 via Getty Images
While Verstappen and Marko are full of praise for Mekies’ contribution, the Frenchman himself remained modest in his post-race media debrief: “The level of my contribution is zero, and I’m not joking either.
“It’s 1,500 people working on making that car faster, so these are the talents that make the car faster, that make the hundredths and make the thousandths, and that make the set of options with the new components available. So the short answer is that my contribution is zero.”
Pushed once more on the topic, Mekies emphasized that he felt all people in the factory and Verstappen deserve more praise instead of him.
“Our only role is to make sure that the talents that we have are put in the right conditions to express their talent at best,” he said. “That’s the only thing we are doing, so that’s the extent of the contribution. That’s it, nothing more.”
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