‘We’re beyond scraps in the garden now’: the identical twins on opposite sides for Red Bull

When the grid forms for this weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix keep an eye out for the crews around the two Red Bull cars. The No 1 mechanic position on each car is occupied by identical twin brothers, Matt and Jon Caller. Two parallel, key roles in each garage held at the same time, in the same team by the pair who previously worked on the world champion Max Verstappen’s car together.

Brothers working in Formula One is not unusual, but identical twins ending up in identical positions across the garage from one another would not have been on anyone’s bingo card. Now 34, Matt was born 30 minutes before Jon. Matt is No 1 mechanic on Verstappen’s car as the Dutchman attempts to seal his fourth consecutive title in Nevada and Jon on teammate Sergio Pérez’s.

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“We never dreamed this could happen, even to the point we started working in the same team together,” says Matt. “That in itself was a novelty. We were on Max’s car together, both on the back-end, I was rear-end mechanic and Jon was the gearbox man. Then fast forward to now and we are both No 1s on our respective cars. I don’t think anyone could have written that.”

“We are both gunmen [operating the wheel gun during tyre changes] as well, so even in the pit crew we do the same job,” adds Jon, with a laugh they immediately share. “I don’t know if it’s just written that way, we just don’t seem to be able to stay apart.”

They have been with the team for almost the same amount of time as Verstappen himself – Matt since 2015, at which point his brother was enjoying a successful career as mechanic in touring cars and prototypes. With Red Bull struggling in a search for a new mechanic they asked Matt if he could recommend anyone. “I said: ‘Funnily enough I have a carbon copy, my twin brother who is pretty handy on the spanners,” Matt recalls.

Jon joined in 2017 and since then both have worked closely with the world champion, who can secure the title this weekend if he finishes in front of McLaren’s Lando Norris. Unsurprisingly, they have a strong respect and admiration for the Dutchman.

“We have seen the whole meteoric rise of Max Verstappen,” says Matt. “It’s been a privilege to work with him. He’s a great guy, ridiculously fast and ridiculously talented. No nonsense and very easy to get on with. Max is that talented that he can get in pretty much anything and it will go fast. With Max, you see it every weekend for the most part, especially at circuits we have never been to before, he will just go out and be at absolute race pace straight off the bat, lap one, practice one, he will be there straight away.”

Jon adds: “To come in at the youth of his F1 career and work with a driver like Max Verstappen and to see where he is now, on the verge of a fourth world title, is something incredible. He is not slowing down any time soon. As long as we keep giving him the machinery there is no stopping him really. He sometimes gets bad press but he’s not arrogant, he’s not short with people, he just knows what he wants out of a car and what needs to be delivered. When you give it to him he wins races. It’s very simple.”

While they are lighthearted and great company, for all the brothers’ obvious similarities, they are distinctive characters. “We have our own personalities, our own ways of thinking,” agrees Jon. “We are similar in our makeup, so we do similar things but we still have different opinions on things and decisions on how best to go about certain things.

“But we are beyond having scraps about it in the garden like we did when we kids, we are a bit more professional in the pit lane now.”

They grew up watching F1 with their father on the sofa and, sharing a bent for engineering, followed it together, attending the same school, college and then Swansea University, before splitting up for the first time as Matt went to work in single seaters and Jon in touring cars, followed by a reunion and advancement to identical roles at Red Bull. “It will dawn on me later in life how special and unique this situation is,” Jon observes.

So what of sibling rivalry then, especially with Verstappen riding high and Pérez struggling? “We have always been competitive since we were little,” says Jon. “We are always looking to try and beat each other in whatever we do and the same goes for this. Every time we turn up I would like to win a race and I know Matt would like to win a race but it is never ill-mannered.”

Matt concurs. “We just enjoy racing, competitive sport, whatever it might be. It’s always been competitive but it’s a nice competition rather than an aggressive one. If I see Jon winning a race or a pole position, I am proud because it’s really nice to see him excelling.

“The first time I thought this is a bit mad was the start of this year, which was Jon’s first race as No 1 on Checo’s car and my first on Max’s as No 1. As we were sending the cars to the grid we were looking at each other and it was like: ‘This is odd, isn’t it? We’ve made it.’”

“We both burst out laughing at the uniqueness of it,’’ says Jon. “We are just two lads that like building race cars and we have somehow fallen into these two positions. It’s a pinch yourself moment.”