{"id":109427,"date":"2025-08-31T08:08:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T08:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/109427\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T08:08:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T08:08:07","slug":"racing-bulls-boss-issues-response-to-max-verstappen-test-rumours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/109427\/","title":{"rendered":"Racing Bulls boss issues response to Max Verstappen test rumours"},"content":{"rendered":"

Racing Bulls team principal Alan Permane has definitively shut down any suggestion that Max Verstappen could get behind the wheel of the junior team\u2019s machinery in a bid to find greater performance.<\/p>\n

This comes shortly after Permane stated that a \u201ctop-line\u201d Formula 1 driver \u2014 such as, perhaps, Verstappen<\/a> \u2014 could get behind the wheel of the easier-to-drive VCARB machine and extract the machine\u2019s maximum performance.<\/p>\n

No Racing Bulls test for Max Verstappen in the near future<\/p>\n

While Red Bull Racing has struggled to find its footing with its RB21 machine thus far in the F1 2025 season, its sister team Racing Bulls<\/a> has thrived.<\/p>\n

The VCARB 02 has enabled its drivers \u2014 Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar \u2014 to bring home critical points for the team. Lawson, who struggled to find his footing in the RB21, has managed to snag 20 points, with teammate Hadjar scoring 22.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Yuki Tsunoda, who replaced Lawson at Red Bull from the Japanese Grand Prix, has only managed a meager 10 points. Only seven of those have been scored in the RB21.<\/p>\n

More analysis from the Dutch Grand Prix:<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 Data reveals the true story behind Aston Martin\u2019s stunning Dutch GP pace<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Uncovered: McLaren deploy update tactic for Dutch GP performance gains<\/a><\/p>\n

Alan Permane \u2014 the new Racing Bulls team principal, succeeding Laurent Mekies after the former boss was promoted to Red Bull \u2014 told Motorsport.com that the outfit had early indications that the car would be promising.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something we have worked on over the winter, and then we realised that we had a nice car to drive,\u201d Permane said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut until you start competing, it\u2019s difficult to judge it. Through that Bahrain test we were never quite sure.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter that we were pretty confident, because we ran with quite a lot of fuel that week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we got to the first races, we realised what we\u2019d done, and that helped lead the rest of the development for this car.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Permane denied claims that Racing Bulls intentionally designs its cars to be somehow easy to drive, he did acknowledge that the ability for young drivers to get behind the wheel and be successful is a bonus.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suspect it\u2019s a car that a top-line driver would also find comfortable to drive and would also be able to extract the performance from,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But is a top-line driver set to get behind the wheel?<\/p>\n

Rumours have suggested that reigning World Champion Max Verstappen could get take the VCARB 02 out on a track, either for a filming day or for an FP1 session during a race weekend.<\/p>\n

The thought process here is that Verstappen could theoretically identify areas of improvement in the Racing Bulls machine, while also perhaps bringing some helpful feedback to Red Bull in order to make the RB21 simpler to drive.<\/p>\n

This weekend at Zandvoort, though, that suggestion was put to Permane by Sky Sports F1, and he denied it outright.<\/p>\n

Asked if there were any discussions about Verstappen getting behind the wheel of a VCARB 02, Permane replied, \u201cAbsolutely none at all. Zero.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure they\u2019re focused on their own thing, getting the most out of the package that they have, and we\u2019re doing the same here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Red Bull and Racing Bulls are sister teams, they\u2019re both required by FIA regulations to construct their cars independently of one another, which means that there is theoretically very little crossover between any machines the two outfits construct.<\/p>\n

It follows that it would therefore be difficult for Verstappen to get behind the wheel of the VCARB 02 with the intention of discovering some of the car\u2019s hidden weaknesses, or with the intention of solving Red Bull\u2019s problems.<\/p>\n

Read next:\u00a0Dutch GP: Piastri shocks Norris to claim pole as Stroll crashes\u00a0again<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Racing Bulls team principal Alan Permane has definitively shut down any suggestion that Max Verstappen could get behind…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[11752,49,48,33614,578,576,577,1613,1885,44,22395,3015,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-109427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-alan-permane","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-dutch-grand-prix","12":"tag-f1","13":"tag-formula-1","14":"tag-formula1","15":"tag-home-page","16":"tag-max-verstappen","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-popular","19":"tag-racing-bulls","20":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}