Could Adrian Newey's absence be the gap in Red Bull Racing’s armour?

08:58, 09 Jul

byTim Kraaij

Does Red Bull Racing miss Adrian Newey? David Croft, Sky Sports commentator, thinks so. The Brit learned about the issue with the RB21 and made his conclusions.

Red Bull Racing opted for a radical setup at the British Grand Prix. A ‘low downforce’ setup, similar to that in Monza. However, Red Bull did this with a dry race in mind. The race, however, was not dry, making the RB21 uncontrollable even for Max Verstappen.

But was it really all about the setup, or is the Red Bull Racing car generally hard to handle? After Sergio Perez, in 2025, Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda also find it extremely difficult to cope with the Red Bull car. Croft believes he knows why.

Max Verstappen drives the RB21 at Silverstone

What goes wrong at Red Bull Racing?

''Fair play to Max. He had the spin, he got his head down, and he salvaged a fifth place finish from that race. And was still making progress at the end. Yuki, I don't know where we go with Yuki on this one,'' says Croft in the Sky Sports podcast.

"He's still struggling with the car. It's been a lot of races now. He'll be there till the end of the season. We all want to see him do so much better.''

''But it was told to me at the British Grand Prix that Red Bull have basically designed a car that is the fastest possible car that the data could possibly suggest, but it's undriveable.''

''And they were warned about it in terms of the design team, but they ignored the warnings. Well, it's kind of coming home to roost a little bit. Maybe they're missing Adrian Newey an awful lot more than Christian Horner said they would or ever thought they would.''