Earlier this week, Autosport revealed that Red Bull Newey’s chief technical officer had extended his contract with the energy drink team.

Verstappen, who has won every race under Newey’s watch, is happy with the aerodynamic maestro’s decision – though he dismisses any suggestion his own future is tied to him.

“Nothing will affect 28 years because I have a contract, but of course I’m happy for Adrian to stay,” Verstappen said ahead of the Miami Grand Prix.

“But it applies to everyone on the team, right? When you’re doing well, you want to try and keep the whole team together. Of course, that’s the goal of the team going forward.”

Newey’s commitment to Red Bull’s long-term future opens up the prospect of the team continuing to build on their current dominance.

Plus: the generalist qualities that make the Newey F1 a great design master

The team’s stranglehold on F1 this season has sparked criticism for making the series dull – with Mercedes boss Toto Wolff saying F1 needs to take a closer look at what can be done to make the race more exciting.

However, Verstappen believes a different agenda is at play, with Wolff’s Mercedes no longer as dominant as it was in the early turbo-hybrid era.

“Toto won of course, you didn’t hear his voice,” Verstappen said.

“When you’re doing really well, you want to try and get the whole team together.” Max Verstappen

Photography: Carl Bingham/ motorsport pictures

“In football, sometimes you also have very boring games and then great games,” he said. “You can’t manipulate everything to create more excitement.

“Sometimes it happens, it’s just part of Formula 1. Sometimes, like in Baku, you expect something really crazy to happen and then nothing happens. But it’s also the other way around.

“Sometimes you think ‘this is going to be a boring race weekend,’ and then all of a sudden a lot of crazy stuff happens. But I guess that’s true of all sports.”

Regulation changes for 2022 are aimed at improving overtaking and encouraging more competition. After subsequently raising the edge of the floor to help Red Bull’s dolphin-stricken rival, Verstappen believes the rules are now “fine” and is not overly concerned about Red Bull being involved.

“Well, you always see that happen a little bit in Formula 1. If a team is dominant, they try to change things,” he added.

“But at the moment I think it’s fine. Of course, certain things have changed the bounce and all that, but as a team we’ve always been able to deal with that pretty well.”