The admission of the technical director
“Some teams jumped ahead of us”. Max Verstappen The alarm bells had already rung at Red Bull in Silverstone and the last races have only confirmed the Dutchman’s thesis. In Budapest, despite the updates, the three-time world champion failed to secure pole position, albeit by just 46 thousandths. In Belgium, the penalty for the introduction of a fifth combustion engine transformed a pole position into an eleventh position, which was improved to fifth place at the checkered flag, a position promoted to fourth place following the disqualification of George Russell’s Mercedes.
Max Verstappen has a 78-point lead over Lando Norris in the Drivers’ standings, while Red Bull has a margin of just 42 points over McLaren. From Zandvoort to Abu Dhabi the battle will be fierce certainly as far as the team standings are concerned, while Verstappen’s advantage seems to be substantial enough to manage towards the conquest of the fourth world title.
What hasn’t worked so far in the RB20 after a more than promising start to the season? The technical director Pierre Wache he didn’t hide: “Compared to what the simulator numbers promised, we didn’t grow as much as we expected in the fast corners – explained Adrian Newey’s heir as reported by the newspaper Motorsport – based on our instruments we expected to improve more in that area. We struggle on the kerbs, but that was already the case in 2023, and even in this ‘fundamental’ we have not improved. Compared to last year where we have managed to improve are in the low and medium speed corners”. Waché also added that 2024 actually started better than expected at Red Bull because its rivals caught up with the RB20 a few races later: “We thought the fight would be even from the start, but it took just 4-5 races for the competitors to catch up with us.”
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