The news this week was that Red Bull’s challenger for 2024 failed at the first hurdle. Their RB20 chassis must pass a crash test designed by the FIA to ensure sufficient energy absorption is present in the design to protect the driver during high speed crashes. Whilst this happened to Red Bull as they planned their 2022 car, with just 56 days to the first day of the Bahrain Grand Prix, this is clearly not ideal.
Mercedes meanwhile are looking to recover from their worst year since 2013 when then also they failed to win a racer. Lewis Hamilton has now gone two years without an F1 victory, though George Russell salvaged some pride for the former champions winning the 2022 Grand Prix in Brazil.
Mercedes 2024 car new concept
Toto Wolff now admits the team git it fundamentally wrong in 2022/23 and states: “We are changing the concept. We are completely moving away from how we laid out the chassis, the weight distribution, the airflow. I mean, literally, there’s almost every component that’s being changed because only by doing that, I think we have a chance.”
By shifting towards the concepts other team’s have employed over the past two seasons building a completely new platform including particularly suspension and floor together with combining new aspects of anti drive and roll is a tall order for the former world champion team.
Much is being made of the idea that Red Bull Racing will suffer from the law of diminishing marginal returns. Put simply the undiscovered knowledge about ground effect F1 cars is reducing and therefore Red Bull will fall back into the clutches of the chasing pack.
Martin Brundle in his 2023 review suggests this: “History tells you in Formula 1 that consistent regulations close the pack, and the pack is already quite close, as we saw with Williams or a Haas popping into the top ten in qualifying quite frequently. So that they can improve that car, but the others should copy, catch up, innovate – yes.”
Of course nobody knows how close the knowledge ceiling Red Bull in fact are. There may be a lot more to learn about the current ground effect downforce concepts than is being assumed and Red Bull could again make another big jump for 2024.
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Red Bull now have the data
Yet the problem facing Mercedes is more complex than simply building a car capable of matching Red Bull’s RB20 in terms of performance. Modern F1 racing combines both design and practical track knowledge how to set up the car to perform best at each different tyre of circuit.
“There’s an opportunity to do a different car, and let’s assume they do a car as good as Red Bull, I think that Red Bull will still have the advantage, even if the Mercedes is just as good as the Red Bull in every dimension,” said ex Ferrari and Williams manager Peter Windsor o his Youtube stream.
“Because Red Bull have got this two years of experience of knowing how to run this car in all different variables that come into play in such a long championship, with such a wide range of circuits and conditions and track surfaces, Pirelli tyre compound differences and deg and all that stuff.
“Red Bull has got all that for the car that they basically have and will continue to have in 2024, whereas Mercedes will effectively, if they do have a Red Bull [level of car], be starting from zero in terms of knowledge of how to run that car.
“So that’s one thing that will make it difficult for Mercedes to beat Red Bull.”
Data matters as much as design
As if to prove the point even the best engineered car which had all the data from its race win at Singapore in 2022, struggled this year at the very same track this season.
Christian Horner recently admitted his team had excelled in their pre-race predictions of how the setup the car should begin the each weekend. Much of this was due to simulations run back in Milton Keynes and based on the knowledge Red Bull gained under the first year of the new car design regulations in 2022.
Of course Singapore 2023 was the blip in an otherwise perfect season for Red Bull. Verstappen qualified a miserable P11 and a rare potential race strategy error form the team halted his charge through the field yet the world champion still managed a respectable P5 finish.
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Horner explains Singapore errors
Horner admits at this one circuit from the other twenty one, the pre-weekend set up simulations were badly wrong.
“I think that that race just brings everything into reality, that I think quite often we made winning look easy this year,” noted Horner. “Winning is never easy,” revealed the Red Bull boss.
“I think that race just bought it home that if you miss the target, it’s small margins. Set-up wise, we arrived with a set-up that our simulation tools led us down the route of…., and it just didn’t work on that circuit, on that day, particularly in qualifying.”
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RB19 heavily reliant on RB18
One of the reasons the RB19 was so dominant was down to it being an evolution from the previous seasons car as Christian Horner explains.
“There were a great many carryover parts and some of the components have actually won, in Max’s case, 19 races this year and 15 last year, so the combination of the two: 34 races,” Horner admits.
“It was a little bit everywhere,” he said. “It was not one specific area that you could take the weight off. It was just marginal gains in all areas.”
So not only are Mercedes starting from somewhat a blank sheet off paper, but they have another difficulty not faced by Red Bull. Having promoted George Russell who was their junior driving in waiting for some years, he knows they expect him to be the future leader of the team on track when Lewis Hamilton finally hangs up his boots.
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Russell/Hamilton battles problematic
So Russell’s approach to racing is completely different than when Rosberg retired and Valterri Bottas took his seat alongside Hamilton.
On the whole the Finnish driver was compliant and deferred to Hamilton whenever the team required him to. In five years of racing alongside Hamilton, Valterri’s best year vs Hamilton in qualifying saw him finish ahead of Lewis just seven times.
In his final two seasons before leaving for Alpfa Romeo, Bottas managed qualifying deteriorated seeing him beat his team mate just four and five times repetitively.
By way of direct contrast, Russell struggled against Hamilton in his first season beating him for the Grand Prix grid slot just seven times. Yet despite 2023 not being the best in racing terms for Russell, he clawed back a qualifying deficit over the final races to finish 11-11 with Hamilton.
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Wolff concerned about going backwards
Windsor argues that if Mercedes do get it right they still have a problem trying to negotiate Hamilton to his eight world title because, “Lewis has still got to beat George Russell,” Windsor continued. “That’s not easy for him to do, because George is never going to go away, he’s really quick.”
Of course Verstappen has proven he does not have that problem. He proved this season that even starting way down the grid in Miami, he could catch and pass his team mate who claimed pole position and win the race at a canter.
Toto Wolff at the season debrief admits Mercedes’ approach to 2024 has its huge risks. “We could get it wrong also. So, between not gaining what we expect, catching up and making a big step and competing in the front, everything is possible.”
Even if Mercedes ace the design of their W15, will they have the knowledge from track to track how to set up the car given the platform is completely different from what they’ve been running for the past two seasons?
READ MORE: Red Bull 2024 car fails FIA crash test
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
All these articles are showing that it was the Mercedes car, not the driver, that was responsible for its past successes. In 2023, we saw that MB had practically equalled Red Bull and in certain cases, even exceeded Red Bull performance. Yet the knight is clearly not in the class of the Red Bull driver. The MB engineers have done all that is humanly possible, yet they have to take criticism week in and week out just because their knight needs a laser gun against his adversary’s epee, and cannot duel with him on equal terms.
His best chance to leave the sport with dignity went in 2021. Now his legacy is being eroded year after year. His own hubris and that of Toto’s blindness to reality will lead to nemesis. He will finally leave with his head hanging and his tail between his legs. I can’t wait for that day when justice will be rendered.
You really do have a very warped sense of reality Vijay.
Every, single, interview that anyone from the team has given this season, be it Toto Wolff (admittedly another of your bizarre obsessions), James Alisson, Shov or Mike Elliott at the time, ALL, to a man, said that they got the fundamental design of the car wrong this year, and were not able to undo the baked in issues without a full redesign of the of the chassis – something that the would not be able to do in season.
Interesting article repost from 3weeks ago