00:01Red Bull Racing team principal Laurent Meckies says the top squad is not holding retirement talks with Max Verstappen,
00:08with its efforts focused on tweaking the regulations to bring the cars back to the drivers.
00:17Verstappen has been an outspoken critic of the sports regulation change, calling current cars anti-racing.
00:23But things ramped up in Japan, where he stated he's not enjoying the whole formula behind the sport,
00:29and that he has things to figure out regarding his future.
00:34Meckies, though, speaking with F1's official podcast, Beyond the Grid, says he's got full confidence that Verstappen will commit
00:41if the sport works to make qualifying flat out again while retaining the close racing.
00:50If we do that, I have every confidence that Max will keep seeing what we all see,
00:56is that you still have the best 22 drivers in the world there, you'll have the fastest car on the
01:01planet,
01:02and he's the most competitive environment, and he's ultimately a competitor.
01:11Daniel Ricciardo says he's grateful that Red Bull took the decision to drop him from its Racing Bulls team
01:16following the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix, as he was struggling to admit he was done.
01:24Ricciardo was axed mid-season after he failed to consistently take the fight to his then-teammate Yuki Tsunoda
01:30across 2024's first 18 races.
01:33But in a new chat with Ford's CEO Jim Farley on his podcast Drive,
01:38the Australian has revealed he was already considering the inevitable.
01:43I think it would have been hard to be like, I'm done.
01:48Because, not so much for me, I think I knew I was probably done,
01:52because I knew that it was harder for me to perform at the level I could.
01:55Yeah, yeah.
01:55Whatever happens, you know, like, okay, Alonso, these guys are still,
01:59they're in their 40s in F1 competing very highly.
02:02Yeah.
02:02For whatever reason, I lost a little bit of something, and it's okay to admit it, it's fine.
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