F1 News
"You see friction developing between Red Bull Racing and external parties"
Mercedes also make mistakes now and then (see the pitlane incident in Monza), but technically it delivers one flawless weekend after another. In that respect, Red Bull Racing still have a lot of ground to make up. According to Renger van der Zande, this is inherent to the corporate structure of the Milton Keynes team.
"You might see that at moments like this," said Van der Zande in conversation with De Telegraaf. "At Mercedes they all sit together in the office, continuously working with the different parts in terms of gearbox, engine aerodynamics and, of course, electronics. They do have external partners, but they do a lot in house."
Friction between Red Bull and external partners
"Red Bull's approach has been clever in that sense, because it's also cost-effective to say 'that's where I get the engine, that's where the electronics come from and that's where the chassis comes from, although of course, they do the latter themselves."
Van der Zande is pretty sure that things went wrong with the electronics this time.
But when the problems arose before the start of the Tuscany Grand Prix, Van der Zande saw that this is sometimes difficult to work with. According to Van der Zande, an engineer from Magneti Marelli, who was working on getting the electronics right in Max Verstappen's car, was a bit pushed aside by the Red Bull mechanics.
"Then you see the friction between those two parties and that didn't work out well."