Red Bull’s Championship lead has slowly been cut down over recent months. Only moments of brilliance from Verstappen have postponed the inevitable rise of McLaren. Despite the team’s desperate need for upgrades, Christian Horner warns that improvements to the RB20 will be difficult to produce.
Upgrades are increasingly complex for Red Bull to deliver
Generally speaking, F1 teams chase downforce above everything else. Improving a car’s aerodynamic efficiency is usually the best way to unlock more lap time and climb the pecking order.
This is not the case for the current generation of cars. Whilst downforce is still essential, there is a very crucial distinction between pure downforce and usable downforce.
In other words, teams might believe their upgrades can improve performance based on the wind tunnel data. However, it must also be taken into account whether updates can produce more downforce without upsetting the car’s balance.
Ferrari, Aston Martin and Mercedes have all learned this lesson the hard way.
The most recent example of this was Ferrari’s dilemma at the Spanish GP.
Fred Vasseur’s team brought updates that produced the anticipated downforce points, but they also caused the SF-24 to bounce, thus worsening overall performance.
Although Red Bull have avoided this issue for several years, even they are now struggling with this problem.
Red Bull continue to struggle
Red Bull tam principal Christian Horner has outlined this dilemma:
“We’ve hit the ceiling in certain areas, and the car is disconnected,” he told the media.
“Sometimes maybe [it is better] to have slightly less load but an overall better balance.
“To generate better lap time, better degradation, better tyre management, all of those aspects.”
Helmut Marko has echoed a similar sentiment in recent weeks, explaining that creating a stable platform on the RB20 is the priority. This is something Max Verstappen has mentioned consistently throughout the season.
No room for mistakes
Of course, this is not to suggest that upgrades are impossible to achieve.
It also doesn’t mean that unlocking more lap time is now impossible. McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes have all made big steps forward with their development programmes this year.
However, it is also true that the margin for error is rapidly diminishing. This is especially true for Red Bull, whose solution to their ongoing decline is to retrace their steps and use old components.
Though this could be useful in the short term, the defending Champions must find a way to make more concrete progress in the final rounds of 2024.
