Adrian Newey believes that Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel have both been “demonised” by the British media.
In particular, the design legend cited Sky F1, which although UK-based has its coverage broadcast throughout the English-speaking world.
Whether in the US, Canada, Australia or New Zealand, week after week viewers are subjected to the Sky team bigging up the hopes of the British drivers over their rivals, indeed over the Monza weekend they were almost bullying Zak Brown and Andrea Stella into implementing team orders in favour of Lando Norris.
However, it is the “demonising” of the likes of Verstappen and Vettel that disturbs Newey, who designed championship winning cars for both drivers.
“From the outside, I’m not sure people fully appreciate and understand Max, just like they didn’t with Sebastian,” he told the High Performance podcast.
“There’s this sort of demonisation both of them suffered at times, which is very unfair,” he continued. “Maybe that’s also a little bit of the British media, if I’m honest. Sky have a huge influence around the world. Although viewing isn’t truly international, their coverage is quite nationalistic, dare I say, and that can have an influence.
“It’s this thing that now with journalism, typically,” he added, referring to a practice that isn’t limited to F1 drivers, “there is that trend to sort of either put people on a pedestal or knock them down.”
Referring to Verstappen, who must surely already be finding space in his diary for a seat-fitting at Aston Martin in preparation for 2026, Newey said: “I think that he’s very intelligent, and he’s got an incredible ability to… it feels as if he can drive the car automatically.
“He doesn’t, of course, but he can drive the car and has so much processing power left over that he can then think a lot about how he’s driving the car, how he’s looking after the tyres, what he might need to do on the settings.
“Or if he doesn’t, if he’s not sure, he’ll ask GP on the radio what he should be doing, but highlighting the problems.”
Reflecting on the controversial conclusion to the 2021 season in Abu Dhabi, where Verstappen won his first title, Newey said: “I think, honestly, Max is so self-assured. This is in a positive way. It’s not in a negative way.
“There’s arrogance and there is self-assured,” he added. “Max is not arrogant, but he is very self-assured and self-confident, and he’s a deep thinker. But he doesn’t let things like that, I don’t think, they don’t really get to him. He’s able to shut that off and just get on with his job and get on with his task and do what he loves doing, which is driving racing cars.
“Actually, I think it got to Mercedes,” he said in terms of that controversial night. “And instead of saying OK, accepting it and moving on, it started to affect their psyche, which is an interesting one. That’s from the outside, and I might be completely wrong. They just couldn’t let it go. Psychologically, they couldn’t let it go.”
