The Monte-Carlo weekend hosted yet another showdown from Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen. Only a tough Fernando Alonso tried to worry them, but with rather poor results.
Red Bull continues to dominate: 6 race wins out of the 6 played thanks to 4 successes by Max Verstappen – the last one captured yesterday in the Principality – and 2 by Sergio Perez, who instead ran into one of the worst weekends since he raced for the team Milton Keynes.
And the Mexican was the involuntary author of one of the actions that Red Bull would have carefully avoided. Let’s not talk about the damage done to the RB19 during Q1, when Checo crashed into the protective barriers of the Santa Devota.
But of the moments following the accident, when the RB19 number 11 was lifted by the crane to then be brought back to the paddock. Once hooked up, the single-seater was lifted tens of meters off the ground, leaving the field free for all the photographers.
Object of desire: the floor of the sensational single-seater designed by Adrian Newey’s staff, probably one of the many secrets of a car which, to date, has seemed perfect and dominant. Certainly not an ideal situation for Red Bull, but Christian Horner, perhaps aware of the great performance and technical advantage his team has, took this “theft” in a seraphic way.
“This weekend was a bit of an exhibition for all the teams. I think at a certain point almost everyone was forced to show the bottom of their cars because they were lifted by cranes. In the end, it’s the same situation for everyone.” he declared at the end of the Monegasque weekend.
“Of course it’s very impolite to look up people’s skirts. Funds photos are taken inside the paddock. Funds arrive in vans, pit work is done, shutters are up and so on. Then all the teams hire photographers spy to take pictures of the competing single-seaters when they are open”.
“It’s a common practice, so I don’t think it’s the first time a photo of the bottom has been taken. It was probably the first time the RB19 has been suspended in the air, but all the teams are always looking to understand what they look like. the competing single-seaters are done. Nothing strange”.
In short, everything seems calm at Red Bull. On the other hand, the one who felt a certain pleasure in seeing the bottom of the RB19 photographed was – inevitably – Toto Wolff. The Mercedes team principal made no secret of how pleased he was with the opportunity, noting that although Mercedes were also forced to unveil their fund after Lewis Hamilton’s crash, Red Bull had much more to lose.
“I think Red Bull has more to lose than us, especially with regards to the bottom. This can happen, you know, sometimes you go off the road and you’re forced to load the car onto a truck to take it back to the pits and see how it looks, but it was truly a Cirque du Soleil performance to see it hung like that, because it was raised 50 meters off the ground. It almost looked like an art installation. And it was unusual…”.
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