Edd Straw

Do you think something's been lost there in terms of the fact that there has been this kind of move, this shift in power, where it's Red Bull on a corporate level has taken control of the team that it saw as Team Horner?

I'm always unnerved by that because I'm not sure that a corporate approach...

works well historically in f1 you do need a level of unreasonableness perhaps that people like Horner and Newey and I mean that as a positive brought that perhaps an entity like Red Bull can't do and I do worry that might slightly dilute over time and this will take time to manifest it's not a six month 12 month thing it's kind of over five six years you really see it do you think there has been something lost there or is it still there or is it in the process of being reclaimed

And Laura Mackey is interesting, isn't he, John?

He's very capable, very, very good, but...

through no fault of his own he feels like he's got a diminished leadership role in that team insofar as he doesn't have the Horner level of control of over everything not through choice but that's what Red Bull wants because Red Bull wanted it to be their team not not Christian Horner's team and and that's the one thing that slightly worries me I don't have a problem with him having that more hugger than a fighter approach because I don't think there's a there's fundamentally a problem with that as long as you're fighting the battles you need to but

but does he have that level of control to put that unreasonableness that an F1 team almost needs to have to be as successful as it's been?

It doesn't feel like he's fully, fully empowered in that regard.

Yeah, that's the thing, isn't it?

And it comes from that everyone's against this sort of mentality, doesn't it, I think.

Because sometimes everyone isn't against them.

Because all teams are against each other in F1, aren't they?

That's not actually unique in terms of Red Bull.

But I guess it's their proactiveness in terms of not just letting things slide, which I think actually is the right thing to do.

That is what allows them to be successful.

Yeah, I think it's easy to fall into that and see that because just in the world for everything, it's very easy to see the sort of negativity from the outside, but not the positivity.

And I think, you know, the majority of people would recognise Max Verstappen as the best driver in Formula One.

in recent years and still is now and red bull racing as we've been talking about here is an outstanding team and i think people respect that but maybe it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy doesn't it john because you if you have that attitude of oh everyone hates us then people start pushing back against that and getting annoyed about it and so it's a it's really hard because you're you're talking about the relationship of a team of as you say matt 2 000 people

And this huge edifice, a huge number of moving parts, both in a Formula One car and a team.

But it gets reduced down to a few people and a few things, doesn't it?