“They couldn’t let it go psychologically”: Adrian Newey shares his take on Mercedes’ reaction to Max Verstappen’s 2021 triumph over Lewis Hamilton

Adrian Newey believes Mercedes struggled to accept Max Verstappen’s victory at the 2021 Abu Dhabi GP. Speaking on the High Performance Podcast ahead of the 2024 Azerbaijan GP, the renowned engineer reflected on Mercedes’ reaction to the controversial race and how the Dutchman coped with the aftermath internally.

Following the 2021 Abu Dhabi GP, Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing faced significant backlash for their win, with many attributing the victory to a contentious decision by FIA Race Director Michael Masi. This controversy left a shadow over Verstappen’s first world championship, with Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton feeling they had been unjustly denied the title. The fallout from that race has persisted into subsequent seasons and remains a hot topic. While Newey was largely unaffected by the criticism, he thinks Mercedes’ mental approach was deeply impacted.

When asked if the 2021 Abu Dhabi GP controversy affected him personally, Newey responded:

“No. No it didn’t [affect me]. I think it got to Mercedes. Instead of saying ‘OK, we will accept it and move on’ it started to affect their psyche, which is an interesting one. That’s from the outside. I could be completely wrong. They couldn’t let it go psychologically. If you have a bad race, perhaps you should have won and the bloody thing broke down on the last lap or whatever. I always had a personal issue. I will be horrible to be around any airport on that Sunday evening, but come Monday morning, I need to wake up and be back on it. I can’t go into the factory all miserable and downbeat. Part of my position, I suppose, is to help and hopefully motivate everybody—not saying ‘it’s so unfair, we were robbed.’ It doesn’t help, does it?”

Asked how Max Verstappen dealt with the criticism over the 2021 Abu Dhabi GP finale, Newey explained:

“Max is so self-assured. This is in a positive way, not a negative way. There’s arrogance and there’s self-assured. He’s not arrogant, but he’s self-assured, self-confident. He’s a deep-thinker, but he doesn’t let things like that… I don’t think they really get to him. He’s able to shut that off and get on with that job, doing what he loves doing, which is driving racing cars.”

 

Adrian Newey highlights the strengths and unique abilities of Max Verstappen

Adrian Newey believes Max Verstappen possesses a remarkable ability to drive and process the technical aspects of the car simultaneously. He admires the Dutchman’s impressive spare capacity, allowing him to not only highlight issues with the car, but also analyze its performance while driving. He has also praised Verstappen’s rare ability to read the race by watching the trackside screens and interpreting data. Newey noted that only a few top drivers, including Fernando Alonso, are capable of analyzing the race in this way while managing their own car’s data.

Asked about Max Verstappen’s strengths as a driver, Newey explained:

“I think that he’s very intelligent, and he’s got an incredible ability to… It feels as if he can drive the car automatically. He doesn’t, of course, but he can drive the car and has so much processing power left over that he can then think a lot about how he’s driving the car, how he’s looking after the tyres, what he might need to do on the settings. Or if he doesn’t, if he’s not sure, ask GP [Gianpiero Lambiase, Verstappen’s race engineer] on the radio what he should be doing, but highlighting the problems.”

When asked about another rare skill of Max Verstappen, Newey said:

“Reading the race. It still fascinates me. Fernando is another one who can do that. He seems to be able to read the race. But having got all the stuff in front of them, how do they do that? I don’t know. Some of them can also see on the down vision, they sometimes do that where drivers can see down the vision and look up and see the screen. I think it’s rare, and only the very top guys can do it.”

Not every driver uses the trackside screens to follow the action across the grid. Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso, however, are known to reference data from these screens during the race and relay information to their engineers. The trackside screens are typically large displays intended for fans in the grandstands to follow the race. While Newey has now been announced as a Managing Technical Partner and a shareholder at Aston Martin, there is ongoing speculation about Verstappen possibly joining the Silverstone team in 2026 and beyond.