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Verstappen backs Horner: 'Way team is managed is good'
- Ludo van Denderen
While Max Verstappen was celebrating holidays, a Red Bull Racing prominent was making his departure world famous. Jonathan Wheatley is leaving the racing stable after almost two decades, to become the team principal of Audi (then called Stake F1) from mid-1925. Verstappen does not begrudge the Briton the move, but does regret it, he told GPblog and others in the Zandvoort F1 paddock on Thursday.
From the first day Verstappen came out for Red Bull, he worked with Wheatley. Soon that will come to an end. "With Jonathan I always had a very good relationship," says the Dutchman. "Only, when you get an offer like that and you have the ambition to move up; it just wasn't possible with us. That possibility was not there with us. He could always stay in his role, but he couldn't go higher. There, he did get the opportunity to go higher. And of course, when you've been with the team for so long, you start thinking about that. The offer from the team (Audi, ed.) was also so good. Then when you're dealing with a budget cap, you can't easily match that. No hard feelings."
Verstappen saw no chance higher up for Wheatley at Red Bull
It is still unclear who will replace Wheatley at Red Bull. "The roles have to be divided among other people. We are working hard on that now," stated Verstappen, who would not say whether he felt Wheatley should have become team boss at Red Bull. "That option was not there. I think the way the team is run, with the people we have, that is good. Hence his role was his role. That will not change either."
In any case, Verstappen expects Audi to have a lot of fun with Wheatley. "He is obviously very good at what he has done with us. He will bring a lot of experience to Audi. And that's good for them. They have done that well. Hopefully, he will have a good time there. It's quite an adjustment, of course, going from England to Switzerland. But if people set their sights on that, there's no point in trying to talk that out of his head. Then you have to let that go too. That's what I told him."
This article has been written in collaboration with Ben Stevens.
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