Red Bull “ignored the warnings” over undriveable RB21, says David Croft

Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft claimed he was informed that Red Bull “ignored the warnings” that the RB21 was “undriveable”.

Red Bull has slipped to fourth in the constructors’ standings and at the halfway point of the season, the Milton Keynes outfit is 288 points behind championship leaders McLaren.

Both four-time champion Max Verstappen and his team-mate Yuki Tsunoda have been struggling with aspects of the RB21 this season, with the latter claiming only seven points since he joined the squad ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix.

Croft discussed Red Bull’s performance at the British Grand Prix during the Sky Sports F1 Show podcast.

“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,” Croft explained.

“Yuki – I don’t know where we go with Yuki on this one. He’s still struggling with the car. It’s been a lot of races now. He’ll be there ’til 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.

David Croft, Sky TV

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

“Well, it’s kind of coming home to roost a little bit. And maybe – maybe they’re missing Adrian Newey an awful lot more than Christian Horner said they would or ever thought they would.”

Verstappen also commented on the current performance of the team while speaking to the media in Silverstone.

“If everyone knew what they had to do, then everyone [would be] winning races, or at least everyone had a chance of winning. And in F1, unfortunately, that’s not the case. Of course, we’re not where we want to be, but we’re still fighting for podiums.

“I think we are trying to find more performance in the car, but also, of course, last year we were a bit hurt with our balance issues that we had with the car. So we also had to first understand what was going on there, and for sure, that has also hurt probably a little bit, too, the future development of the car during this year.”

The Dutchman added, “But we’re still trying everything we can to be as competitive as we can be. Now, is that going to be McLaren level? Maybe not. Probably not. That’s how F1 goes for you.

“Sometimes you have dominant years, good years where you can win a lot. Sometimes, maybe not. Or not at all.”