Red Bull admit their error in 2024 – Whilst Max Verstappen claimed his fourth consecutive F1 driver’s title last year, Red Bull Racing spent much of the season flummoxed with the performance of their RB20 car. Come round three in Australia, Max was on course to equal his own record of ten successive Grand Prix victories, only for a brake failure to thwart the world champion, handing the victory to Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz.

More early season victories and despite an unlucky timed safety car in Miami which handed Lando Norris his maiden F1 victory, meant Verstappen had won seven of the first ten Grand Prix. It looked for all the world that Red Bull and Max had picked up where they left of the previous year where the team won 22 or the 23 GP on offer.

Even during the European Summer racing season it appeared Red Bull had the upper hand until in Austria, while leading the race, Verstappen collided with Norris. Ultimately despite penalties from the stewards, Max trailed home in P5 but more importantly Lando was out of the race and the points too.

 

 

 

Red Bull surprised by early lead

This weekend marked the start of a remarkable run for the world champion and his Red Bull team which failed to claim another GP victory over ten consecutive outings. Only the drive of the century in Brazil saw Max once again on the top step of the podium, a feat he repeated at the Qatar Grand Prix just a few weeks later.

The dramatic fall from grace from 2023 to 24 sparked a deep dive investigation within the Red Bull F1 team to discover what was preventing them a return to winning ways. Yet expectations had not been high at the start of last year’s campaign, as technical director Pierre Wache tells Autosport.

“The season was basically as challenging as we expected,” he said. “I would say we were more surprised at the beginning of the season because of the gap we had.

“We expected the whole season to be like the end of the season, a big fight with the others. We didn’t expect such a big hole in the middle of the season ourselves, but we did expect a big fight with others,” concluded Wache.

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New correlation issues appear

Unlike in 2023, Red Bull struggled with setup when arriving at each weekend’s venue. This explains Wache was due to a lack of correlation between simulated performance and what in reality was happening in the real life world. Further, the RB20 discrepancies in data led to balance issues for the drivers further exacerbated by the car’s sensitivity in certain areas.

“There are multiple aspects to that story,” Wache continues. “The first one is the correlation, that the car had some different characteristics than what we expected in terms of aero.

“Another aspect is that we didn’t expect some elements would affect the car performance as much as they did. They were not there by desire, but maybe we didn’t focus enough on them. Those elements were still there at the end of the season, and we have to fix them for 2025.”

Despite being a state of the art technology company, Red Bull Racing face a handicap each year as they wait for their new wind tunnel to be completed. The project was put on ice some years ago as Adrian Newey believed the FIA were set to outlaw wind tunnels in favour of Computer Fluid Design tools which are way cheaper to operate. 

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Red Bull wind tunnel ancient

Yet the expected ban never came and both McLaren and Aston Martin will this year be enjoying the fruits of their new wind tunnels as Red Bull race to catch up.

“We had a loss of downforce in some areas of the [downforce] map and therefore we didn’t perform on track as we thought we could based on the wind tunnel, so there were some holes,” says Wache. “That is a correlation issue and in terms of delivery on track it was mainly a balance issue.”

Red Bull’s early season dominance in 2024 masked a number of underlying issues with the car, that would not come to light until late in the summer racing season. That said there were signs of the difficulties the team was set to face in Monaco, when even in the hands of Max Verstappen, the RB20 stoutly refused to play ball with the high kerbs and bumpy tack.

The seven wins from the first ten GP had masked the underlying issues with the RB20 and by the time the team realised they were in trouble, they had delayed corrective action.

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RB21 has fundamental changes

“I think we spotted it, but after that the car was quick, and we didn’t want to modify it massively,” Wache admitted. “When we came back to Europe and were challenged more by McLaren, then it started to become more and more evident that it was one of the biggest issues for us to go quicker.”

Having failed to make early changes to the car, the team appeared flummoxed mid-season in how to fix the unreliable platform the RB20 was bringing to the drivers. Talk of reverting to an older spec car which won in Japan, China and Emilia-Romagne began to circle the paddock, although with hindsight Wache reveals this was never a viable option.

Yet late in the year a stela drive from Verstappen, from P17 to win the race in Sao Paulo calmed the nerves in Milton Keynes. The just two weekends later in Qatar, Max and Red Bull were back to their magnificent best.

“In Qatar the car had the same characteristics, and we were able to win fairly and make the quickest car for this track,” said Wache. “So performance is always relative to the others.”

Comments from Christian Horner towards the end of the year suggested Red Bull will make certain fundamental changes to this seasons challenger, given the limitations of the design last year to move the car forward in critical areas of downforce and balance.

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Ferrari’s clear plan to unlock Hamilton pace

Lewis Hamilton is one of the greatest Formula One drivers of all time, of that there is no doubt. Statistically he has achieved more than any other competitor, including the great Michael Schumacher although he remains level with the great German driver on seven world championships but is looking for the record breaking eighth.

Most of Hamilton’s success came during his tenure at Mercedes during which he claimed six of his seven drivers’ titles and the list of records he claimed during that period extends to several sheets of A4 paper.

A sample of these achievements includes, most race wins with a single team (81), most pole positions for a team (78), fastest lap in F1 history (2020 Italy), most world titles with a single team (6)…. The last goes on and on. Yet one thing in particular marked Hamilton out in his glory years with the silver arrows and that was his destructive one lap pace, which one team mate after another was forced to marvel at as Lewis was relentless in his pursuit of pole positions which would set up his race victories…. READ MORE