Suddenly the deck is short for the RB20 too
From “I had to sweat this one out” to “This car is very slippery”. Max Verstappen in the Imola-Monaco double he achieved his fifth success of the season in Italy with a masterpiece only to then collapse to sixth place in the Principality due to an error in Q3 in Qualifying while chasing the front row alongside Charles Leclerc. The three-time world champion won five races out of eight, retiring in Australia and missing the victory in Miami probably due to an ‘unlucky’ Safety Car, but it is clear that compared to 2023 the tune for Red Bull has changed.
The enormous advantage over the competition has disappeared and every victory must be achieved on the track without mistakes or trying to remedy those made in the preparation phase. The Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur he underlined after Monaco that Red Bull had a pit stop advantage over its rivals a year ago and now this is no longer the case. Miami is proof of this fact because Verstappen, to cover himself from Leclerc’s potential undercut, had to ‘expose himself’ to Norris’ overtaking favored by the neutralization.
Verstappen in Monaco emphasized the fact that the curbs are indigestible for Red Bull from 2022, a weak point now highlighted by the growth of Ferrari and McLaren. The RB20s in the second sector in Monaco lost three tenths as they could not cut the lines on the curbs. The difficulty in attacking the curbs could also take its toll this weekend in Montreal, Canada, but it’s not just the curbs that scare the technicians in Milton Keynes. As he points out Auto Motor und Sport Tire degradation has also suddenly become a topical issue at Red Bull. In Australia it was necessary to compromise the set-up to avoid a collapse of the tires and the difficulties in Imola are the result of the technicians’ worries about the life of the tyres. The RB20 showed up too loaded on Friday precisely to try to preserve the life of the tires and was subsequently unloaded with Verstappen perfect in putting the car in pole position. In the race, however, the hard tires didn’t ‘light up’ because there was a lack of aerodynamic load. Carlos Sainz had said that “Miami, Monaco, Monza and Singapore” they were the opportunities to beat Red Bull. The first two were exploited by McLaren and Ferrari, but according to the German newspaper Montreal, Baku and Interlagos are also ‘poison’ for the RB20, which is continuing to update the car floor without finding the load points ‘promised’ by a simulator that did not allow us to properly prepare for the weekends in Imola and Monaco.
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