Red Bull are known for impressive in season development of their Formula One cars. Back in 2009 Brawn stole a march on the field with their innovative double diffuser and this powered Jenson Button to win six of the first seven races of the year.

Yet Red Bull’s in season development saw them half the deficit to Brawn over the second half of the year, finishing just 19.5 points behind the new world champions. During their all dominant 2023 season, Red Bull’s advantage meant they could thoroughly evaluate their upgrades before fitting them to the RB19.

This year the world champions do not have this luxury and despite Max Verstappen winning seven of the first nine Grand Prix, they are just 42 points ahead of McLaren who have been closing them down.

 

 

 

 

Red Bull big upgrades failure

The Hungarian Grand Prix saw the largest number of upgrades brought to the RB20 but these clearly failed to deliver as intended and Max Verstappen could manage only fifth place at the chequered flag while McLaren claimed their first 1-2 for since Monza 2021.

Next up in Belgium, Red Bull fitted a new power unit to Verstappen’s car which exceeded the number allowed each year by the FIA. So Max took a penalty, but starting P11 he was expected to come through the field with ease. A determined Charles Leclerc held onto third at the chequered flag and Red Bull were left rueing the pace advantage they had last year in Spa.

With Max on a run of four races and no wins and McLaren closing in the team decided to ditch the Hungary upgrades for Zandvoort. Both drivers reverted to an early season specification of the RB20 which saw Perez claim four podiums during the first five races of the season.

The complex nature of the new F1 ground effect cars has seen a number of teams abandon their design philosophy. Mercedes battled on with their ‘no sidepod’ design for two seasons before sacking their technical director and starting almost from scratch. Aston Martin were best of the rest early last season with Fernando Alonso claiming six podiums in the first seven races. Yet a mid-season upgrade appeared to damage the performance of the Aston Martin car which was quickly over taken by McLaren following their Austria upgrades.

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Red Bull ditch in season upgrades

Over the summer break, part of the Red Bull evaluation was to determine whether they’d taken a wrong turn in terms of the car’s development. Max won seven of the first ten races, but has failed to make the top step of the podium for the subsequent five Grand Prix to follow.

This kind of downward turnaround is unusual in F1, particularly for a team like Red Bull whose in season development is legendary. The decision saw Sergio Perez run several parts in Zandvoort practice which were part of the early season RB20 specification.

According to Dutch publication De Telegraaf the triple world champion in fact used the floor design from the start of the season, yet he continued to complain about sliding during qualifying which saw Lando Norris put his McLaren on pole some 0.35 seconds quicker than the best Max Verstappen could manage.

What appeared to be another runaway year for Red Bull after the first seven rounds of the season, is fast becoming a nightmare for the reigning world champions. Max’s lead has been cut to just 70 points in the drivers championship, although had McLaren not been so naive in Hungary, Norris wold now be just 63 behind the world champion.

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Horner thinks Verstappen should be safe

McLaren also slashed another 25% off the deficit to Red Bull Racing and are now just 30 points behind in the coveted constructors’ title race.

Yet Christian Horner having rattled his abacus hard believes it will be no mean achievement for Lando Norris to win the drivers’ title race this year. “Based on today’s performance, if it’s like that at the next nine races, yes, it would be very, very difficult.

“It’s the fourth time this year, only the fourth time that Max’s points lead is reduced. It’s only Lando’s second win, but we know we have to find performance,” reflected the Red Bull boss.

Yet things could have been much worse. Other than for a poor start Oscar Piastri believed he would have been fighting for P2 and beating Max Verstappen to the count in Zandvoort and with Perez rarely scoring the big points these days, the two Mclaren’s are closing in fast.

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Verstappen change of focus

Christian Horner was asked whether Verstapen will have to change the way he approaches the next nine weekends of racing. He conceded: “I think that you’ve got to drive with the championship in mind.

“There’s been seven different race winners this year. So if you can’t win, then you’ve got to be scoring the points.”

Of course at the current rate of progress, McLaren will overtake Red Bull at the Singapore Grand Prix in three races time. It appears there’s little Red Bull can do about this and with the shocking margin of Lando’s win over Max by over 22 seconds this turnaround is not the work of a moment.

Horner does suggests this result in terms of margin may indeed be just a freak event, referring to times gone by when Red Bull had a similar advantage.

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RBR desperation in using old spec floor

“Obviously it’s not nice to be beaten by 22 seconds, but it just shows when you get things right and your car in the window, as we saw earlier in the year, that kind of result is possible,” said the from the Red Bull boss.

“So it doesn’t scare us in any way. It just focuses the mind that, ‘Okay, we need to turn this around and we need to get it right.’ I think that McLaren obviously made a step a little while ago and their car here, particularly with Lando, was very impressive, very impressive”, Horner concluded.

To revert to the early season floor specification is a drastic move on Red Bull’s part and smacks of an act of desperation to find where the designs for the car went wrong along the way.

Next up the ‘Cathedral of Speed’ is a whole different kind of monster when compared to the sand dunes of Zandvoort ad Red Bull will be praying their low down force package for the car is better than the high downforce one they just ran in the Netherlands.

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It was the best of times in Formula One land last year for Max Verstappen. The Dutch driver went on to smash many long standing F1 records during his dominant campaign and his RB19 became the most successful F1 car design of all time.

Now trailing home Lando Norris by almost 23 seconds at his home Grand Prix, it must feel to Max as though he is now facing the worst of times. Sergio Perez continued his string of disappointing  performances and only claimed sixth place due to a strategic error from Mercedes who pitted Russell while he was ahead of the Red Bull driver for a set of new soft tyres intended to propel George into a podium position.

Now Red Bull have had their lead in the team championship slashed to just 30 points by the chasing McLaren duo who closed the gap to the world champions by 12 points this weekend… READ MORE