Verstappen fires back at Russell over big Red Bull claim before Australian GP

The Dutch driver, who spoke to GPblog ahead of the Australian Grand Prix, was quick to shrug off claims of Red Bull sandbagging – especially after Mercedes’ George Russell hinted that Red Bull held back performance during the second Bahrain test.

“I don’t really think about those things. I just focus on what we do here, and I’m not really too bothered about what other teams do or what other people say,” Verstappen said.

Speculation about Red Bull Racing sandbagging in Bahrain has continued to dominate discussion in the lead-up to the season opener. Aside from Russell, Scuderia Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton also suggested the Milton Keynes team might have run their engine in a lower power mode to avoid drawing too much attention during the first week of testing in Bahrain.

Amid the growing calls of sandbagging, Verstappen redirected the ‘quickest’ tag to rival teams. The Dutch driver, who expressed delight at the performance of the Red Bull–Ford power unit, added that despite his team’s impressive showing in testing, they are still not the fastest.

Verstappen, however, opted against naming a specific team as the quickest in his assessment, but rather again reiterated how delighted he remains with his team’s showing through the various testing in the lead up to the season opener.