Giedo van der Garde, a former Formula One driver, stated that “sabotage” is not an option at Red Bull, but he wondered if the off-track drama at Red Bull had any bearing on the unusual technical failure that cost Max Verstappen his life in Melbourne.
Red Bull began the Formula One 2024 season with one-two finishes in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, demonstrating their usual dominance. However, the team boss Christian Horner, senior advisor Helmut Marko, and star driver Max Verstappen were not able to fully enjoy their success as a barrage of inquiries regarding conflicts behind the scenes persisted.
Flowing logo
Was the Red Bull lapse caused by the fallout of the off-track saga?
Before Round 3 of the Australian Grand Prix, where Verstappen entered aiming for a record-tying tenth victory, things had somewhat calmed down.
It was either a mechanical problem with the brake, or someone forgot to do something,” said van der Garde while speaking on the DRS De Race Show podcast.
PlanetF1.com recommends
The F1 2024 Drivers’ Championship standings without Max Verstappen
Revealed: The F1 2024 Constructors’ Championship without Red Bull
“It’s certainly strange that this happened right now at Red Bull. I’m not saying it’s sabotage – certainly not.
“But when there are internal messes in a team like that, people can make mistakes. We haven’t seen it in two years. It was such a well-oiled machine. Everything ran so perfectly.
“So does this have something to do with what’s going on at the top?”
Red Bull were unable to keep their 100 per cent winning record in-tact after Verstappen’s DNF with his team-mate Sergio Perez managing only P5, due to a visor tear-off getting stuck in the floor and triggering a loss of downforce. Ferrari instead scored a one-two of their own, Carlos Sainz taking the win with Charles Leclerc P2.
Even still, Verstappen continues to lead the Drivers’ Championship by a four-point advantage over Leclerc, while Red Bull leads the Constructors’ standings by the same amount over Ferrari.