Verstappen sure Singapore technical directive ‘won’t hurt’ Red Bull

Max Verstappen says the new technical directive the FIA has introduced ahead of this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix will not diminish Red Bull’s dominance.

The directive, details of which were circulated to teams last month, imposes new restrictions on how far body work may flex under load to prevent teams trying to gain an aerodynamic advantage.

Red Bull has dominated the 2023 season so far, winning all 14 races to date. Verstappen does not believe the new directive will affect the performance of their all-conquering RB19.

“I don’t think it will,” he said. “We never had any flexible front wing or whatever so I don’t think it will hurt us.”

However he does expect a closer fight with their rivals at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, which he believes will be one of the more challenging venues for Red Bull. “I think we just are not as competitive as at other tracks.” He said.

“The street circuits are a little bit tougher for our car. I still think that we can do a good job but it will be very tight.”

Red Bull have so emphatically dominated this year’s season that they could clinch the constructors championship this weekend with seven rounds remaining. Verstappen said that is largely due to the quality of the car they’ve made this year, rather than changes in how the team has performed.

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“We always had quite a high level performance as a team but we just didn’t have that good a car I think up until this year.

“Of course last year already the car was very good. The years before we were close, but winning here and there and not fighting for the constructors.

“But I think everything really came together, we understood this new regulation really well and when you have good people in every single position you can achieve something like you are witnessing right now.”

Verstappen set a new record by scoring his 10th consecutive win at the last race in Italy. “Of course I want to try and continue that streak,” he said, “but I know that there will be a day, of course, that it will stop.

“Normally street circuits, Singapore, it’s always a bit more of a risk, a bit more chaos. But we are here to win and we’ll try to do that.”

He brushed off comments made by Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff who described Verstappen’s record as “irrelevant” following the race at Monza. “I’m not disappointed in that,” he said. “They had a pretty shit race so probably he was still pissed off with their performance.”

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Verstappen himself has played down the significance of the achievement. “He almost sounds like he’s an employee of our team sometimes,” he continued. “But luckily not.

“I think it’s just important that you focus on your own team. That’s what we do as well. That’s what we did in the past as well when we were behind them when they were dominating.

“You should be able to appreciate when a team is doing really well which I think we’ve done in the past because it worked also as a kind of inspiration. To see someone that dominant was very impressive at the time and we knew that we just had to work harder, try to be better and try to get to that level. And now that we are there we’re very happy that we are there and we’re enjoying the moment.”

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