Max Verstappen has denied George Russell’s allegations that Red Bull Racing is holding back from reaching its full potential in the 2023 F1 season. Red Bull Racing has already won three straight victories in F1 Australia and already has a huge 58-point lead in the Constructors’ Championship.
However, in qualifying for the F1 Australian Grand Prix, George Russell closed the gap to Max Verstappen to 0.2 seconds, and Hamilton stayed within 10 seconds of Verstappen until the red flag stop at the end of the race. However, Russell said the narrowing of the gap was because Red Bull Racing could lose an advantage from the FIA, so he considered it “embarrassing” to maximize the potential of the RB19. I argued that it was because However, Verstappen categorically denies such allegations. “I don’t think there’s anything they can do anyway,” Verstappen told the BBC’s Checkered Flag podcast about the possibility of rules being introduced against Red Bull. “We’re just trying to do the best we can with the development of the car, but it’s also a matter of pace management, because no one really knew how long the hard tires would last.” “So you don’t have to take that risk,” Red Bull F1 team principal Christian Horner also said Verstappen’s pace management was due to the early one-stop race. Horner also said Sergio Perez’s run from last to fifth in his sister car was evidence that Red Bull Racing had not chosen to back down to avoid a sudden rule change. Longtime team principal Christian Horner also used the occasion to ridicule Mercedes and its dominance at the dawn of the turbo-hybrid engine era. Former Mercedes technical director Paddy Lowe once stressed in 2014 that the German manufacturer chose to hide its engine dominance. “He’s a very caring person,” Horner said. “In a way, his team should be well aware of such an advantage,” he said. Of course there was an element of tire management, and that’s what they were doing.” “He wasn’t cruising or taking 0.7s off a lap because he didn’t want to show that. Here. So the grid was certainly a little closer.”