Sport can truly be a wonderful thing. Fantastical scripts evolve during sporting competition where in the movie theatre would be slammed as unrealistic. This year Formula One is off the preprepared script which wrote in another year of domination for both the team and Max Verstappen.

The incredible turnaround during a single season is almost unheard of with McLaren now favourites for the constructors’ championship and Lando Norris in with a shout of the drivers’ crown. In fact, were Red Bull to lose both F1 titles this season, a crisis would be declared to have taken place in Milton Keynes.

Yet for now, Vertsappen and Horner battle on hoping the technical team back at base can solve the RB20’s current woes. Of course Red Bull would be comfortably leading the constructors’ championship had Sergio Perez performed like other number two drivers in the front running four teams.

 

 

 

Reasons for Red Bull fall from grace

Perez is currently in eighth in the drivers table, yet had he collected the points that Carlos Sainz has in fifth place, Red Bull would still be leading McLaren. In fact had Checo performed the level of Oscar Piastri in fourth place, Red Bull would now be leading the field by over 60 points.

Sergio has been a problem for most of his four years with the team, yet untypical indecision over the Mexican driver has seen him survive the predictable Red Bull mid-season driver switch on more than one occasion.

While Perez’s lack form may have been predictable, Max Verstappen failing to win a race since Barcelona is almost incomprehensible. Eight races with no win hardly compares to Lewis Hamilton’s fifty six or even Fernando Alonso’s monstrous 198 races since his last win in Spain 2013, yet even so for Verstappen its clearly a worrying time.

Various theories have been proposed as to why Red Bull’s fall from grace has been so rapid. One suggests it follows the FIA’s technical directive banning asymmetric steering, though Red Bull deny this vociferously.

Albon calls on FIA to change tack

 

 

 

Horner says Newey departure ‘on the cards’ last year

Of course the obvious theory includes the departure of F1 car design guru Adrian Newey, though given Horner’s comments on the strength of the technical team, it should follow Newey’s departure would have little impact.

“Adrian leaving the team was something that already [was on the cards] at the back end of 2023, he was growing somewhat, I think, conflicted in his own mind. The agreement that we had was at the end of ’25 he was going to step back from F1 and really just be a mentor. Otherwise, I was going to lose the other [technical] guys to some rival teams,” TJ13 reported the Red Bull boss saying this week.

If anything it is Newey’s suspension design which is showing its limitations this season, making the RB20 difficult to handle at circuits with raised kerbs and uneven surfaces. When the new ground effect 2022 regulations came along, Newey realised the underfloor and the suspension needed to work in conjunction. Suspension was no longer subservient to aerodynamics, but intrinsic to its performance.

And whilst Newey claims the RB19 and 20 are evolutions of the 2022 car, clearly the suspension and underfloor aero are no longer complimentary. The design on the earlier cars presented a tight platform (little pitch and dive) which allowed the rear suspension to be softened when compared to others – the combination being more sympathetic to tyre wear.

Toyota back door F1 entry?

 

 

 

Newey cautioned on new wind tunnel

Whether Red Bull have taken a wrong turn in development of the RB20 is questionable, it could just be other teams have unlocked the dark art of ground effect aerodynamics.

Yet Horner now reveals there’s another factor in Red Bull’s difficulties as he blames Newey and the team’s wind tunnel for some of their current malaise.

Horner tells Autosport there was a recent time when the FIA were considering banning the use of wind tunnels in favour of Computer Fluid Design modelling. Yet the CFD is the place where ideas are formed while the wind tunnel becomes the arbiter of whether the concepts work.

“There was a point in time that wind tunnels could have been banned. There was a discussion about whether that was going to be the case, and whether CFD (computational fluid dynamics) would overtake it or not.

“Adrian [Newey] held off pushing for a new tunnel until there was clarity on that. But it got to a point where Aston Martin wanted a new tunnel and the FIA changed their stance,” claimed the Red Bull boss.

Steiner SLAMS McLaren decision

 

 

 

So why the delay?

The problem with this explanation is that Aston Martin’s wind tunnel comes on line Jan 1st 2025, whereas the Red Bull’s is only expected at the earliest in 2026. Red Bull clearly delayed once the FIA had clarified their position and now could be one to two years behind rivals like McLaren and Aston Martin.

Horner also claims in the cost cap era the cost of their old wind tunnel is inefficient. “We’ve got a facility that is a 60-year-old wind tunnel. It is a relic of the Cold War.”

Christian admits the decision was eventually forced upon the team:“So it was a question of: ‘Look, we have to do this, and we have to do this now, because the regulations dictate that, within a cost cap, the tunnel that we’re running is grossly inefficient.’”

New Red Bull car details revealed

 

 

 

Irony of Newey using Aston’s new wind tunnel next year

Despite the limitations of the Bedford based wind tunnel relic, it has “produced some fantastic cars for us over the years. But it has its limitations,” notes Horner. “So anything under five degrees [centigrade], we can’t run it. Anything over 25 degrees, it becomes pretty unstable.”

Co-incidence or not McLaren opened their new wind tunnel in time to test the 2024 car. Team boss Andreas Stella spoke over the winter break of how he believed the correlation between wind tunnel, CFD and what is produced for the track is incredibly tight, something which Honer will rue having delayed their project too long.

McLaren’s wind tunnel was an upgrade of their previous version where the externals are the same using the same fan, but the rest of the wind tunnel’s interiors were replaced. The have certain limitations with larger scale models still, but for now the proof of the pudding is in the race wins for Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri this season.

Ironically after issuing caution over building a new wind tunnel in Milton Keynes, Adrian Newey is leaving for Aston Martin who now have the latest and best wind tunnel in the F1 paddock.

Binotto calls “The End” for Red Bull

 

 

 

Binotto says Schumacher’s in..

Since Audi announced they were joining Formula One, the road ahead has appeared long and winding. Recent PR announcements claim their power unit development is on schedule at their ‘state of the art’ facilities in Neuberg.

Sauber faced a crisis at the turn of this year when they appeared to run out of cash. This prompted the earlier than planned acquisition of the remaining shares by the German brand and also a rumoured contract extension for Zhou Guangyu whose Chines backers bring tens of millions to the team.

Yet the Swiss based outfit have been shambolic this season. Neither driver has scored a point and their best results were a run of three P13 finishes between Monaco and Spain. Technical director James Key started the year by managing expectations as discussed the long road ahead with Autosport… READ MORE