Lewis Hamilton, who had previously criticized Red Bull, now says he is impressed by how the team has dominated Formula 1 in 2022.
Red Bull are more than 100 points in the constructors’ standings, ahead of Ferrari, who are their closest rivals and t hey are most likely to finally snap Mercedes’ victory streak with eight races remaining.
In the battle for the drivers’ championship, their star driver Max Verstappen has been as ruthless. Sergio Perez, his teammate, is 93 points behind him, and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc is the next-closest challenger from another team, behind the Mexican by 5 points.
Red Bull has received criticism for attempting to compete in Formula One while operating as a beverage corporation, especially from Lewis Hamilton. However, after watching what the team has accomplished over the years and being a seven-time World Champion, he now retracts his earlier statement.
With Sebastian Vettel at the wheel from 2010 through 2013, Red Bull won four straight championships. After that, Mercedes grew in power. After Max Verstappen became one of the first drivers to challenge Lewis Hamilton and his team, a fresh rising star is on the verge of revolutionizing everything. Max Verstappen is among the youngest drivers to have ever won the Drivers’ Championship after 2021 win.
Max Verstappen’s dominance was brought up when Lewis Hamilton was asked for his thoughts. The Brit, though, opted to give credit to someone else for Red Bull’s achievement. Adrian Newey, the chief technical officer of Red Bull formerly worked for Williams and McLaren before joining the team in 2006. Adrian’s expertise in aerodynamics was critical to Red Bull’s success.
“I’m more impressed with Adrian Newey and his team,” the Mercedes driver said. “It is a great team, they’ve generally had really great cars for some time.”
“They used to have a really high ride height and had more drag than before…They’ve experienced this year that their engine isn’t slower than others, that it was more they had a lot more drag in the previous years. They’ve done a fantastic job.”
Red Bull has to collaborate with other automakers such as Cosworth, Ferrari, and Renault to provide them with an engine given that it is a beverage company.
They joined forces with Honda in 2019. Despite leaving the Formula One, Honda still has an impact on the Red Bull Powertrains initiative. The majority of the factory’s employees are from Honda, and the two businesses still maintain positive relations.
When Sebastian Vettel won his first championship in 2010, Hamilton responded by calling Red Bull “simply an energy drinks company,” despite being considerably younger and less experienced at the time.
Since then, they have demonstrated that they are much more than that, and the seven-time world champion is happy to acknowledge that he was mistaken in that regard.
“Anything I would have said in the past about the team, I didn’t mean it in a negative way,” Hamilton explained.
“Years ago I said something negative about them being a drinks company and it was really just highlighting that you would bet on a car manufacturer more but they’ve proved me and everyone wrong and they’ve done a great job.”
“It’s knowing Adrian did his thesis on ground-effect cars when he was at university, so it’s no surprise what he has done and created this year… It’s impressive but I believe in the young guns in our team that will catch up.”
