From the start of this season, Verstappen has worked with Richard Cooke, who joined Red Bull from university in 2017 and was moved across from the simulator group to fill the race team role on a temporary basis.
As performance engineer Cooke supports race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase, with the pair forming a close-knit three-man team with Verstappen himself.
The job focuses on the car systems, such as optimising the differential settings and brake balance around the driver’s preferences, while Lambiase looks at the bigger picture.
Verstappen admitted that having a different face in his immediate circle on race weekends required some getting used to.
“This year I've been working because of circumstances with a new performance engineer from basically the start until now,” said the Dutchman.
“And also that takes a bit of time to gel, and I have to say I'm really proud of the job that he has done to jump in and take the job on, and what we have achieved. It's incredible and really enjoyable to work with him.
“But it's like anything, when you have someone new in your team, to really get this good understanding of what we need from each other, also took a little bit of time.
Source: Autosport