Red Bull decided not to shuffle the positions of Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix for Formula 1 on last Saturday (26th), even as the Frenchman seemed to have a pace edge on the soft tyres. For Alex Brundle, the decision reflects the hierarchy that exists within the team.
At the start of the race, Hadjar was right behind Verstappen and managed to go quicker on the soft compound, while the Dutch driver was on medium tyres. The situation even raised the possibility of a direct swap, but Red Bull chose to keep the lineup as it was.
Brundle understands the decision, though he admits he would have done things differently at a certain moment in the race: “It’s an interesting interaction between the two,” he told the podcast F1 Nation. “The medium tyre performed much worse for Red Bull than the soft. I don’t think it made a huge difference in their final positions when you look at how far Hadjar was behind at the end of the race. But, honestly, there was definitely a moment where, at the pit wall, I would have swapped them back.”
In the end, Verstappen finished in second place, just a touch under two-tenths of a second behind George Russell, the race winner. Hadjar, for his part, could not convert the pace shown early into a position capable of threatening his teammate.
For Brundle, it is also necessary to take into account the weight Verstappen carries within Red Bull. The driver has been with the team since early 2016 and, over this period, has established himself as one of the most successful names in Formula 1 history.
Moreover, in recent years, Verstappen has not faced a meaningful challenge from his teammates and has ended up establishing a clear lead within Red Bull. In Brundle’s view, this helps explain why the team did not want to alter the order in Baku.
“Saying to Isack to try to overtake McLaren was a reasonable thing to do, but he remains the second seat at Red Bull. There is a hierarchy in this team, and they decided not to break it.”
