'Verstappen flown to England for secret Red Bull shakedown'

On Wednesday, unconfirmed reports surfaced that Red Bull Racing was present at the Silverstone circuit. Those reports seem to be correct: the team would have made the necessary preparations on Wednesday and would secretly perform a shakedown on Thursday.

The rumors are further bolstered by a local witness, who reports on Thursday that there is "a Formula 1 car driving around at Silverstone." As previously reported, the car would be driving around with a camouflaged livery and there would be a lot of testing equipment mounted on the car.

Private jet of Verstappen flown to England

In addition, Max Verstappen's private jet flew at 9:30 from Cannes to Cranfield airport, which is a stone's throw from Milton Keynes and Silverstone. Earlier social media posts that seemed to confirm Red Bull's presence were removed during the day.

According to earlier reports, the Red Bull car would feature a 'very unique front wing.' This could explain the secrecy of the team, which has so far hardly divulged anything about the new RB18.

For the F1 car going around in a camo livery the time it set was around 1:26.500. The car is the Red Bull as they are using the other half of their allocated testing miles. Also the camo livery run is a black and white one similar to the one used in 2015.#f1 #f12022 #redbull

— Hamoltin77 (@Hamoltin77) February 17, 2022