Waché admits: “Maybe at the end of 2024 we will understand that it was better to develop the 2023 Red Bull”

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“We were forced to take a risk, our opponents will not have time to copy this solution”. Helmut Marko he thus explained with satisfaction the choice made by the Red Bull technicians to change the layout of the cooling system to obtain even more aggressive and functional sidepods in terms of aerodynamics. The RB19 was ‘at the end of the race’ as far as development was concerned and taking this risk seemed the only possibility for Red Bull to remain ahead of the competition. The RB20 was the reference on the starting grid in four of the first five races on the calendar, but the new layout of the cooling system evidently put excessive pressure on the power units and both Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez have already served a starting grid penalty.

Faced with this ‘cost’ in terms of the life of the engines, there no longer seems to be an effective bonus in terms of performance and in Milton Keynes everyone is starting to have doubts about what was decided months ago. “The window in which our car works has become narrower – explained the technical director of Red Bull Pierre Wache as reported by the German newspaper Cars, Motors and Sports – It is very difficult to reverse the trend. We changed the concept of the car to widen the operating window, but unfortunately we got a bit lost. Now we are evaluating some aspects. Maybe at the end of the year we will come to the conclusion that it would have been better to further develop the concept we had last year”.

“If you develop a vehicle concept for three years and the regulations offer almost no freedom, then you automatically get close to the limit. The main problem is that the rules are much stricter than the previous generation of cars. – added Waché – we can no longer do what we want. This makes it even more difficult to react to problems. It is very easy to find more downforce, but it is very difficult to place it where you want it.. This quickly creates instability. These effects are difficult to predict in the wind tunnel or simulator.”