"We gave him a car that allowed him to do this": Pierre Wache makes his feelings known about Max Verstappen's 4th title triumph

Red Bull's technical director Pierre Wache drew a contrast between Max Verstappen's driving and the RB20's performance as the driver won his fourth consecutive title with the team. Wache claimed that Verstappen was able to extract the most from the car.

Verstappen locked in his fourth title in Las Vegas as he kept McLaren's Lando Norris behind, who was technically the contender for the title alongside him. While this was another show of raw performance from the Dutchman, Red Bull didn't quite hold up to their competitive level this season.

The team dominated the grid in 2022 and 2023, winning the titles by a large margin. However, that was not the case this season. McLaren, Ferrari, and Mercedes, all had winning pace. They were able to defeat RBR on multiple occasions.

Although the team was not dominating, their technical engineer Wache claimed that he had enough confidence in Verstappen to win the title.

"For me it's not a relief, because I expected to win the title. I just didn't think it would happen here, but had counted on Qatar. I felt the relief more in Brazil. That is the performance with which he outperformed everyone and decided the title race."

Wache stated that Max Verstappen's driving helped him clinch the title. Furthermore claiming that the team gave him a car that made it possible to win, but it wasn't dominating like the previous two seasons.

"In the end he is the one driving the car! You still need a good car, but he didn't make any mistakes this year. He was even more mature in the way he drove and in managing the races, so this is definitely his title. We are very happy with him."

"We gave him a car that allowed him to do this, but we didn't give him a car that was good enough to dominate like last year."

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Max Verstappen discusses his "tough run" in 2024 after clinching fourth title

Red Bull carried the momentum from 2023 and Max Verstappen managed to win seven races up until the Spanish Grand Prix. There were multiple race winners after that but the Dutchman kept himself consistent in points. This gave him the lead in the Drivers' World Championship and even though McLaren's Lando Norris won multiple races, Verstappen led the standings.

Reviewing the season, Verstappen said:

"It’s been a long season and of course we started off amazing, it was almost like cruising, but then we had a tough run," F1 quoted Max Verstappen. "But as a team, we kept it together, we kept working on improvements and we pulled off the win. Incredibly proud of everyone, what they have done for me... So at the moment I’m just feeling very relieved, in a way, but also proud."

Verstappen was asked if he wondered about winning such accolades when he debuted as a 17-year-old. He said:

"Definitely not! I was just happy to be there and dreaming of potential victories or standing on the podium, you know – the normal things that are already very difficult to achieve.

"Then we just got onto that run after of course a tough few years, so we kept trying and then we just hit the ground running with the new concept [in 2022] and like I said, to be standing here a four-time world champion is just incredible."

Max Verstappen will continue with Red Bull in the 2025 season as well. He has a contract with the team till 2028 but is speculated to have a new teammate as Sergio Perez's performance has not been impressive.