Why Verstappen’s teammates keep failing: Former Red Bull insider reveals the brutal truth

Drivers like Pierre Gasly, Alexander Albon, Sergio Pérez, and Liam Lawson showed promising results before their Red Bull adventure, but did not perform well at the top team. The same goes for Yuki Tsunoda, who had to start at the back during the Spanish Grand Prix, while Verstappen qualified third.

"I mean there is firstly that there's the Max Verstappen of it all. The guy is just really really good," Nicholas tells on Lucas Stewart's YouTube channel. "I think not in terms of just hisTechnical skill and his talent but just I've watched Max grow into this guy that can do everything. He does everything well now And I think that it's just added pressure."

Nicholas left Red Bull Racing in February this year, but emphasizes there's no difference between Verstappen's and his teammates' cars. "I know the cars are the same You know I spent I spent all this time building them. Sometimes you might have a weekend where you haven't got a set of upgrades for both cars and things like that but over the course of the season those cars are essentially the same."

Why do Verstappen's teammates then consistently fail? According to Nicholas, it all comes down to enormous pressure. "So you look at when we took Max into the team in 2016 it was much lower pressure because we weren't there winning. Merc were winning, we weren't there winning. So the whole pressure around the team was essentially less."

"When you come into a team that's had the dominant season that we had in 2023, the pressure is very different. You know, [the] most successful ever season in Formula 1, you're now the second driver against the guy that's done all of these things. It's a very different ball game in terms of where you need to be in your head space," Nicholas concludes.