Red Bull Racing are having a rough time of it in Formula One presently. Whilst their arch rivals Mercedes dominated Formula One for eight consecutive seasons, Red Bull’s own reign at the pinnacle of motorsport might be over after just three drivers’ titles and two constructor championships.

It appeared having won seven of the first ten races, Red Bull would be certain to claim their third consecutive team title given at each event it was a different rival team taking the plaudits. This of course played into Red Bull’s hopes given Max Verstappen was almost guaranteed to deliver the best the RB20 could offer.

Yet the tables turned very dramatically and Red Bull have been reeled in by the competition and now sit 41 points behinds McLaren. Early in the year, Red Bull’s lead reached its zenith over Ferrari following the Emilia-Romagne Grand Prix in Imola. At the time they were 56 points clear of the Scuderia and McLaren were 86 points behind the leaders.

 

 

 

Red Bull rivals taking points of each other

With a win and a P3 in Monaco, Ferrari closed the gap to Red Bull to just 24 points, yet this was to prove the high point of their season so far as the team took a wrong turn in their car’s development and Mercedes and McLaren became Red Bull’s main challengers each weekend before the summer break.

With Oscar Piastri’s win in Hungary, McLaren moved ahead of Ferrari as Red Bull’s main challenger and the gap was then 51 points to the papaya liveried cars. Just five race weekends later the Woking based team now has a 41 point lead over Red Bull and is now the favourites to win the constructors title this year.

Add to the poor performance on track the other of Red Bull’s woes this year in the number of senior staff who have left the team. Adrian Newey was first to hand his notice in and it became clear in recent weeks he is off to Aston Martin in a mega money and shareholding deal struck by Lawrence Stroll.

But Newey is not the only one seeking pastures new as Audi have poached Red Bull’s sporting director, Jonathan Wheatley, with the enticing offer of the team principal job. Wheatley will work with Mattia Binotto to haul back on track the ailing Audi F1 project. Dr. Helmut Marko revealed that Reed Bull could not match Audi’s offer to Wheatley and so reluctantly parted company with another senior individual.

F1 billion dollar deal

 

 

 

McLaren poach RB head of strategy

Its not just Audi and Aston Martin who are benefitting from the Red Bull brain drain as McLaren recently announced they have attracted the services of Will Courtenay, who will leave his post as Red Bull’s head of strategy, a blow the team are said to have taken hard.

Courtenay will be re-united with two old Milton Keynes colleagues in Rob Marshall and Peter Prodromou who all worked together under the technical direction of Adrian Newey. It appears Red Bull are deploying Gianpiero Lambiase into a more senior position while retaining his role as Max Verstappen’s race engineer.

In 2022 Lambiase took the reigns as head of Race Engineering from Guillaume Rockquelin and now Red Bull have promoted him again to ‘Head of Racing’ in charge of all trackside activity as part of a restructure following the news their Jonathan Wheatley was leaving the team next year.

Red Bull have so far retained the services of their most senior engineer in the form of Pierre Wache, who since 2018 has been the team’s technical director. At the time Newey was looking to get involved in non-F1 projects and so Wache became the full time, day to day figure head of the entire Red Bull technical department. 

Turmoil at the FIA as resignations fly

 

 

 

Red Bull technical director under scrutiny

If reports are to be believed, Newey since then has not had inout into the entire car designs Red Bull have produced. Working just 180 days a year, Newey almost came and went as he pleased and chose the area of the car design he wished to be involved in.

Now Adrian admits he was a little bored and his new Aston Martin job is indeed a full time proposition and some appear to believe the departure of Newey has affected the development of the RB20.

Ralf Schumacher believes Pierre Wache is not up to the job of filling Newey’s boots despite the Frenchman having been the team’s technical director for six years. Wache has overseen three drivers’ championships and two constructor titles yet Schumacher does not believe he is up to the job.

“I think the team is still suffering from the fact that some people are leaving, [that] want to go away and that you can’t replace them so easily,” he said referring to Wheatley, Newey and Courtenay. “I still have a bit of feeling, but that can also be misleading, but that Pierre [Wache] is still perhaps not quite up to the task. He certainly has a brilliant head, but I don’t think he has it [the magic].

Marko reveals what annoys Verstappen the most about the RB20

 

 

 

Schumacher speculates on verstappen leaving

Schumacher speculates on what would happen should Verstappen decide to leave the team, although this is very unlikely before at least 2026 and probably 2027 if at all.

“I really hope for Red Bull that they can get it under control. I can’t quite imagine it yet, [I have a] feeling that it’s going to be a difficult time for Red Bull and especially if Max Verstappen should really go because you can see again what difference he made in the last race.”

Last time out in Singapore Max qualified P2 in the ill handling RB20, while team mate Sergio Perez could only manage P13 behind the likes of Haas F1’s Nico Hulkenberg, Yuki Tsunoda and both Williams drivers including rookie Franco Colapinto. Verstappen brought it home P2 while Checo could buy manage a single point for finishing tenth.

Verstappen: Big announcement from Red Bull

 

 

 

Wache in the job for six years

Schumacher’s view appears a little harsh given that Wache has been running the show at Red Bull in terms of design for some six seasons. It could even be argued that his designs have been sympathetic with Honda’s power unit profile and in fact it was he who turned around Red Bull’s fortunes, not Newey.

Newey has been coseted at every turn by Red Bull and when he became disillusioned with F1 in 2014 due to Renault’s lack of power and Mercedes dominance, he teamed up with Ineos and Ben Ainslie in an attempt to design a winning British America’s Cup entry.

The parting of ways between New and Red Bull became inevitable, given the guru F1 designer had run out of options with the team, other than to kick his predecessor out of the job he’s done since 2018 and retake the reigns of an F1 car design – in full.

Audi boss admits ‘being behind the curve’ for 2026

 

 

 

Minardi legacy to vanish

Formula One is slowly reversing the historic fashion in which the teams establish a pecking order. Those with the biggest budgets, tended to win the championships but since the advent of the cost cap, all this has changed.

Mercedes remain bullish about their new 2026 power unit, with Toto Wolff referring to the team’s dominance the last time a new power unit entered the sport. This is unlikely to happen again this time around for two reasons.

Firstly, the powertrain manufacturers are now under a cost cap formula themselves. Mercedes reportedly spent over a billion dollars on the R&D for their 2014 power unit, which won eight consecutive team titles and six drivers’ championships for Lewis Hamilton.  READ MORE