Red Bull confesses it was ‘surprised’ over Max Verstappen’s dominance at the start of 2024
The 2023 season ended with teams catching up to Red Bull, but it was left bewildered by Max Verstappen's dominance at the start of 2024.
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Christian Horner, Max Verstappen, and Helmut Marko (via IMAGO)
By the end of the 2023 season, McLaren had closed up to Red Bull in terms of performance. This urged Milton Keynes to brace for a season full of challenges in 2024, but they started the campaign with no signs of any flaws. This left the team perplexed with the RB20’s initial performances at the hands of Max Verstappen as technical director Pierre Wache revealed.
Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez finished 1-2 in four rounds out of the first five ones. Rival teams were left dejected as they repped up to endure another season of Red Bull domination. Moreover, this huge performance advantage helped the Red Bull drivers as they won races with mammoth gaps to the rest of the teams.
While its nemesis’ were wondering about how will the Austrian giant celebrate another title winning campaign, Red Bull were not convinced with the RB20’s performance. They had anticipated a close fight but were taken off guard by the sudden lead they had.
Subsequently, Pierre Wache revealed the thought process of the team during their initial dominance. The squad’s expectations became inevitable as McLaren soon overtook them in performance ratings.
We were more surprised at the beginning of the season because of the gap we had. We expected the whole season to be like the end of the season, a big fight with the others.
Pierre Wache said (via Autosport)
On the other hand, the Frenchman has taken up the role of technical director previously occupied by Adrian Newey. So, Wache has some big boots to fill during the upcoming campaign, while the Brit readies up for his switch to Aston Martin.
Red Bull admits the need for fixing the flaws that hampered in 2024
The biggest task that Wache needs to take up would be associated with resorting the woes that RB21’s predecessor was troubled with. The first step in achieving this goal would be improving the correlation of the aerodynamic data with real-world performance of the car.
Moreover, the 50-year-old admitted the need of improving the efficacy and real-world translation. This would help the team get back to their throne of being the constructors’ champions.
Another aspect is that we didn’t expect some elements would affect the car performance as much as they did. They were not there by desire, but maybe we didn’t focus enough on them. Those elements were still there at the end of the season and we have to fix them for 2025.
Pierre Wache said (via Autosport)
Amidst all this, team consultant Helmut Marko asserted that the team has already resolved such issues. However, Marko’s statement could be deemed an effort in order to prevent Verstappen from being tempted by other rivals. Making the 2025 season possibly do-or-die for Red Bull if they want to retain their star driver.
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Geetansh Pasricha
(772 Articles Published)