The rivals are coming
On nine races go on stage in 2024 Max Verstappen has won six, two out of three, but as team principal Christian Horner also underlined at Red Bull, one must not delude oneself into thinking that this data guarantees that the 2024 titles are already a closed matter. The rivals are decidedly closer to the RB20 and Max Verstappen had to use all his talent both in Imola and in Canada to prevail on both occasions over Lando Norris’s McLaren, which in Montreal may complain about the failure to stop under the Safety regime Car which saw a solid leadership fade transformed into a return to the track even in third position behind George Russell’s Mercedes.
The Circus now has the Spanish GP scheduled in Barcelona, a circuit that will draw up a rather truthful ranking of what the balance of power on the track will be. Red Bull is expected to return to the levels expressed in Japan and China, but in the meantime the competition has brought updates to the track which, especially in the case of McLaren, have seen the MCL38 grow and in no small way reveal itself to be a car capable of adapting to all types of track as evidenced by the three second places obtained in Imola and Canada with Norris and in Monaco with Piastri.
The fact that the competition is now at the level of the RB20 has also led Red Bull to show a certain nervousness towards the front wings of McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes. As reported by the journalist Michael Schmidt in the video analysis featured on the German newspaper Auto Motor und Sport they are continuing from Imola heated discussions triggered by Red Bull regarding the bending of the front wing, firstly by McLaren, but also by Ferrari and ultimately by Mercedes. Red Bull was the ‘magician’ of the flexible front wing and now that the regulation has cracked down significantly in this respect, the Milton Keynes team is showing a certain nervousness about the behavior of the front aerodynamic appendages of its main rivals. “The FIA is going in blind”, the words of Christian Horner, but the Federation has deemed all the wings in question suitable for the regulations. Not all the front wings contested by Red Bull behave in the same way, but the aim is the same: some fold outwards, others have flaps that turn backwards, dynamics aimed at reducing resistance to advancement as the speed increases. A sort of wings already in the 2026 version, when by regulation the wings will have to assume a particular position to allow the cars to be fast in a straight line (perhaps too fast).
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