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Red Bull Plays the Double Bluff by Giving Max Verstappen a Special Task to Confuse Lewis Hamilton & Co.

Published Feb 23, 2023 | 10:45 AM EST

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All eyes were on the last year’s reigning champions, Red Bull. During the Bahrain Pre season testing, the world wanted to know whether Adrian Newey has done it again. But alas! They will have to wait another day or maybe even till the first Grand Prix to find that out. The Golden Boy Max Verstappen, who had the car to himself all day, was asked to not be in his element.

Verstappen’s first nature is to drive as fast as he could. Last year, finishing first became as natural as breathing for him. However, the pre-season testing, which is considered a deceptive inception, had to live up to its name. The teams as known to purposely go in for sandbagging. They do so because they still want to keep their competitors wondering how fast they really are. Even though the term was made very popular by Mercedes, Milton Keynes probably decided to take the same route to confuse Lewis Hamilton and others.

via Reuters

Youtuber Sam Collins gave his take on why the Dutchman was driving slowly. He eyed flow visualization paint under RB19’s side-pods to arrive at the conclusion. As quoted by GPBlog.com, he said, “They are studying the airflow underneath the sidepod. That’s what they’re looking at. They want to understand how this new car is reacting. They are doing slow laps, Verstappen is being told to drive as slowly as possible so the engineers can look at the detail of what’s going on.”

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Read More: $640 Million Giants Red Bull Shrug Off Crybaby Max Verstappen’s Concerns Over $1 Million Perfection Penalty

While the man has proved his mettle with the excellence that he has shown on the track, being a race car driver wasn’t his first calling.

Max Verstappen on what he would be if not a race car driver

The double world champion Max Verstappen, who looks like he was born to go racing, experienced a fleeting moment when he wanted to go to a court instead of a track.

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In a Q&A video on Red Bull’s Instagram account, they asked Verstappen what he would be doing if motorsports didn’t exist. He said, “That would be very tricky for me because I literally grew up seeing all kinds of racing.”

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He further added, “I said when I was, like when I was still at school, I wanted to maybe be like a lawyer.” However, realizing it was a lot of work, he had a change of heart, “I mean, but it’s a lot of work though. Like when I properly looked into it, I was like, maybe not!”

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Watch This Story: Max Verstappen and Christian Horner slam Mercedes for trying to ‘take shine off’ F1 title win after Lewis Hamilton drama

The Red Bull fans firstly should thank their stars that Verstappen chose to become a racing driver. Do you think he can replicate last season’s magic again?

Written by:

Anmol

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Anmol is an F1 writer at Essentially Sports. She is a Law graduate from National Law University, Lucknow, and currently pursuing PGD in Journalism and Mass Communication from Symbiosis. Being a Rallyist herself she began watching F1, the apex of motorsports, and eventually fell in love with the sport.
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Edited by:

Akash Pandhare