Newey hits out at Sky for Verstappen and Vettel ‘demonisation’

Adrian Newey has hit out at Sky Sports F1 for its “nationalistic” coverage that he feels led to the “demonisation” of Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel.

Sky has been an F1 broadcast rights holder since 2012, but has recently ran into trouble with Red Bull over its coverage of Verstappen – including a boycott at the 2022 Mexico City Grand Prix from team figures of the channel over comments made by Ted Kravitz on the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. 

Sky was also forced to apologise after a Christmas advert featured Verstappen’s huge accident at the 2021 British GP after contact with title rival Lewis Hamilton. 

Before Verstappen, Vettel also had a persona as a cold, aloof, arrogant driver, especially around the multi-21 saga with Mark Webber in 2013. 

Newey, who has since left Red Bull and has been unveiled as Aston Martin’s new technical managing partner and shareholder, was critical of Sky’s coverage.

“Max is his own man, he’s incredibly mature and rounded and philosophical, and I think from the outside, I’m not sure people fully appreciate and understand Max, just like they didn’t with Sebastian,” he told the High-Performance podcast.

“First of all, there is this sort of demonisation both of them suffered at times, which was very unfair and maybe that is a bit of the British media.

“Sky have a huge influence around the world with their viewing figures, but their viewing isn’t truly international. 

“Their coverage is quite nationalistic dare I say, and that can have an influence.

“It is the thing now with journalism where there is the trend to either put people on a pedastal or knock them down.”

Verstappen out of order

Reflecting on the 2021 title battle with Hamilton that featured three collisions between the two, Newey described how Verstappen was starting to feel the pressure – but accepted the Dutchman was “out of order” for his defensive move in Brazil on Hamilton. 

“A little bit perhaps in his championship year of 2021, where the intensity particularly after Silverstone, on-track, between Lewis and max became so intense,” he said.

“Max had very strong feelings on that Silverstone accident, he’d been the clear championship leader, then was out of the race and in Hungary when hit by Valtteri [Bottas at the start], hardly scored any points. 

“So went from easy championship leaders to feeling a bit more pressure and Max was starting to feel a little bit of pressure from the hunted. 

“He was probably lucky not to get a penalty for his driving in Brazil – the Saudi Arabia ding dong was not that clear – but Max was a little out of order in Brazil in truth.”