Christian Horner thinks the news of Adrian Newey getting into an accident was ‘blown out of proportion’ as he and Red Bull F1 drivers welcome his return.
Over the summer break, Red Bull technical chief Newey was involved in a cycling accident, which kept him out of action for several weeks. At that moment, it was not known to many about his incident and only ahead of Turkish GP that the news started to float.
Dr. Helmut Marko first talked about Newey returning from an incident which raised some curiosity and it was then understood about a cycling accident. He’s back with Red Bull and attending races too, where a lot pinned some of the recent improvements to him.
When asked about the accident and the subsequent effects, Horner reckons the news got blown out of the proportion and got more mileage than it required. But the bigger point is the Brit’s return to action at a crucial period of the 2021 F1 season.
“Obviously these things get blown out of proportion sometimes,” said Horner to written media. “Adrian Newey had an accident while he was on holiday. Thankfully he’s back fully fit, he has been for a few weeks now. Adrian Newey was in Istanbul and Austin and he’s in good shape. This year has been so tight between the two teams.
“There’s no reason to think it won’t be tight again in the next couple of races. So we just got to keep focusing each session, one session at a time, one race at a time, five races to go, there’s still 130 points available in the drivers’, and significantly more in the constructors’, so we’ve reduced Mercedes’ lead in the constructors.
“Max has a 12-point lead in the drivers’ so both are way too close to call. And there’s a lot of racing still to do [and so any help is good, especially with the return of Newey],” summed up Horner. Both Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez welcomed him back too, which helps them in the crucial phase of the year in terms of title fight.
“Of course it was not ideal what happened,” said Verstappen to media. “But it’s a full team effort and I know, of course, Adrian is a leading figure in that and it’s always very nice if Adrian is coming to the track, you can exchange a lot of things, ideas.
“So it was good to see him back again. We’re just looking forward now to the rest of the season, what we can do as a team altogether to try and find a bit more performance,” summed up Verstappen, as Sergio Perez added: “When Adrian is not here, he is obviously close following what’s going on.
“But having him here in our meetings, and just chatting to him, you can, he really gives very good ideas through the weekend. He’s someone that is very complete and understands not just the aero, he gives, for example, good input on the strategy side. It’s just great to have him around, we just have to take care of him to make sure he doesn’t get into more accidents, and make sure that we have him around throughout the year.”
Here’s Christian Horner on Mercedes’ suspension
