Red Bull chose the Mercedes concept with the RB20, it’s a risk

Red Bull in trouble

Victory for Lando Norris in Miami, a repeat almost achieved in Imola behind Max Verstappen and success for Charles Leclerc in his Monaco. Results which before the Canadian GP had certainly not represented the absolute leadership of the Red Bull seen in recent years, to the point that several commentators or ‘formers’ of Formula 1 had expressed some doubts about the possible recovery of the team, all in favor of direct opponents such as McLaren and Ferrari.

The various opinions

Among the heaviest opinions was undoubtedly that of Jos Verstappen, who had even dashed the hopes of his son’s team by defining ‘finished’ the dominance of Red Bull. His words are in stark contrast to the results achieved in Canada, where he witnessed the Verstappen Jr. returns to victory with a convincing performance. Yet, fears of a still negative weekend arose again in Friday’s free practice, even more so after the ERS failure of the Dutchman’s car. Even on that occasion there was no shortage of drastic comments, which were added to the precedents on the team’s decisions relating to the project RB20even considered risky.

Bernie Collins speaks

Specifically, a similar analysis had been provided to Sky Sports F1 from Bernie Collinsformer strategist for Force India and Aston Martin: “I think the big concern for Red Bull is that they started the year with this concept car very different from what we had seen before – explained the Northern Irishwoman – we were all a little surprised that they changed the car in different ways, given its power, more Mercedes style. At Red Bull we are now starting to hear some things like: ‘Oh, we didn’t quite understand the correlation,’ or ‘we’re not making updates work as expected’. All these little things with a different concept car are not a guarantee. When I saw a different concept and I thought it was a risk“.

“Seeing the first race – he continued – I thought ‘they hit the mark again’. But now we’re starting to see that maybe they’re struggling to implement these updates. Maybe that’s an overly optimistic statement, but I’m there small signs that they are no longer as comfortable as they used to be“.