Guillaume Roquelin is now in charge of Red Bull’s youth program, and was the team’s lead race engineer until 2022, but before that he was Sebastian Vettel’s race engineer.
When Vettel came to Formula 1, he felt he was better prepared than Max Verstappen at the time of his World Championship debut. And although the Dutchman has already won two titles as an adult professional, he still has to catch up technically.
“I think when Sebastian joined our team, he was distinguished by a more extensive preparation compared to Max,” said Roquelin, who took part in Eurosport France’s Les Fous du Volant podcast. – It’s about the level of professionalism, pilot technique, thoughtful approach to racing. His idol was Michael Schumacher, and we can say that Sebastian went through his school.
He asked a lot of questions, wrote something for himself all the time and when he moved from Toro Rosso to Red Bull Racing he was already very well prepared. It was no coincidence that Vettel won several titles, he was more technically skilled and he also had order with psychological preparation.
But Max is probably more gifted by nature and mostly relies on his own talent. But Sebastian’s training was more versatile.
Max always felt like he was in charge, he has tremendous confidence, he knows what he wants and he is a very direct person. But to be fair, technically he is weaker than other riders we have worked with. I think he still has a lot to do in this area.
When we talk about his approach to business, about his results, he is the undisputed leader. But I think in the technical field, in the work on the modernization of the machine, he should be added. What struck me most, by the way, was that Max somehow tempered his passion, this desperate thirst for success he had last year.
He became a more mature master, added stability. Winning the championship gave him extra confidence, and now he sails even differently. But I wouldn’t talk about the title as the only factor. As a racer, Max developed gradually and went through different phases.
He made his F1 debut at a very young age, with huge ambitions but perhaps a lack of maturity. He also started his career with Toro Rosso, and this team is not as high-profile and there are less experienced specialists. The real professional growth started when he moved to Red Bull.
Here he is more confident in the abilities of the team, which has a good track record of winning, and has come closer to his goal. Max immediately won the race, which allowed him to take a step forward. Gradually he won more and more victories and built a relationship with his engineers.
He has always had talent. To say that Verstappen’s era starts now, when he started winning titles, is not quite correct. It started when he took his first win with our team.
But we also have to consider a factor such as the quality of the Red Bull Racing car – we hope the team will continue to win the championship. Whether we can build a machine that matches the level of his talent is up to us.”
Source: F1 News
I’m Todderic Kirkman, a journalist and author for athletistic. I specialize in covering all news related to sports, ranging from basketball to football and everything in between. With over 10 years of experience in the industry, I have become an invaluable asset to my team. My ambition is to bring the most up-to-date information on sports topics around the world.
