F1 | Red Bull: Max’s bottom step back to find answers

The second half of the season began with more doubts than certainties at Red Bull, especially because, from a performance point of view, the last period has not seen an RB20 in great shape compared to a McLaren that, race after race, is trying to establish itself as a reference. The Anglo-Austrian team is now trying to relaunch, even taking a step back on some components of the car.

At the start of the world championship, the Milton Keynes car seemed capable of imposing itself on its rivals, even with a certain ease. However, the growth of its rivals thanks to the various updates introduced since Miami meant that the gap was reduced, pushing Red Bull increasingly to search for the limit, making the car much more difficult to drive.

On the eve of the Dutch Grand Prix, Sergio Perez did not hide that the innovations introduced during this championship on the RB20 had led the Anglo-Austrian team down the wrong path and that the summer break gave the opportunity to reanalyze the data, in order to understand the mistakes made. Analysis also confirmed by Max Verstappen himself, who did not deny that the innovations introduced during the season did not give the desired results, returning only small steps in terms of performance.

Indeed, this theme is also linked to the balance difficulties encountered in the last GPs. In the first races of the season, the 2024 version of the Red Bull seemed to be a simpler car to set up than the one from last world championship. However, as the championship continued and the rivals got closer, increasingly marked limits in terms of balance emerged, making it difficult for the drivers to find the right confidence in the car.

Max Verstappen often managed to compensate for his driving difficulties, keeping Red Bull afloat at a delicate moment in the championship, while his teammate, Sergio Perez, suffered from a car that was difficult to balance, entering a negative spiral despite a good start to the championship.

It is no mystery that Red Bull had started experimenting even before the summer break, also because on several occasions the team was forced to throw away the preparation work done in the factory on the simulator, having to start the search for the setup again directly thanks to the data accumulated on the track, effectively wasting part of Friday. Also for this reason on some occasions the Milton Keynes team was able to straighten out the weekends after a difficult start, making a leap from Friday to Saturday.

The floor configuration used only by Verstappen in Holland

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Precisely to find that balance, Red Bull continues its experiments: if on both cars there is now the new engine hood without bazooka, taking up the bodywork that had debuted in Hungary only on Verstappen’s car, the Dutchman’s car has a significant difference, namely the return to an old bottom. Going to observe the cars of Perez and the three-time world champion, in fact, you can notice how on the Dutch one some solutions seen at the beginning of the season have returned.

This can be seen from some details, such as the slide area at the beginning of the floor which, in the upper part under the radiator vents, no longer has that marked step to direct the flows that was introduced with the Suzuka update and then updated with the subsequent specifications. On the contrary, Perez rode with the latest innovations, including the floor that had been modified before the summer break.

Confirmation is also provided by the words of Helmut Marko to Teelegraf, who said that Verstappen is reusing a regenerated floor from the beginning of the season, even if some elements have been modified and do not fully reflect the unity of the first races.

The bottom configuration used up to Spa

Photo by: Erik Junius

The idea behind this step back is to return to a “known” base to start finding answers to the problems encountered during the season after the introduction of the developments. As admitted by Pierre Waché, technical director of the team, there were also problems with data correlation.

A reasoning that recalls that of other teams: Ferrari at Silverstone had given up on the latest package of innovations, potentially more advanced in terms of load, returning to the solutions introduced at Imola to find greater stability on the fast corners while waiting for the corrections. Racing Bulls and Aston Martin had also followed the same path, giving up on those updates that had not brought the hoped-for results, making it much more difficult for the drivers to find the right confidence in the single-seater. A demonstration of how difficult it is today to bring new features to the track that always give the hoped-for results.