{"id":17663,"date":"2023-12-23T06:54:24","date_gmt":"2023-12-23T11:54:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=17663"},"modified":"2023-12-23T06:54:24","modified_gmt":"2023-12-23T11:54:24","slug":"f1-news-red-bull-admit-to-diminishing-returns-in-2024-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2023\/12\/23\/f1-news-red-bull-admit-to-diminishing-returns-in-2024-progress\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 News: Red Bull admit to &#8220;diminishing returns&#8221; in 2024 progress"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Red Bull dominated F1 news with their excellence in 2023, but Christian Horner admits next season will be a new challenge.<\/h3>\n<p>With development in F1 so heavily restricted, starting off strongly is crucial. This is where Red Bull has excelled, with Adrian Newey and Pierre Wache establishing a strong foundation for these F1 regulations. Over the last two years, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2023\/12\/23\/f1-news-rival-criticises-red-bull-unhealthy-alphatauri-ownership\/\" target=\"_self\">rivals have fought<\/a> to try and recover.<\/p>\n<p>Until now, the Austrian outfit has been largely unmatched. This is especially true after the technical directive of summer 2022, which was detrimental to Ferrari&#8217;s initially promising performance. Heading into next season, the question is who &#8211; if anyone &#8211; can compete with Christian Horner&#8217;s team.<\/p>\n<p>Most F1 news outlets have speculated about whether McLaren, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2023\/12\/22\/f1-news-carlos-sainz-reveals-ferrari-contract-aims\/\" target=\"_self\">Ferrari<\/a> or Mercedes can become challengers in 2024. Considering the RB19&#8217;s dominance, a significant step over winter will be necessary to bridge the gap.<\/p>\n<p>However, another factor that must be considered is how much more performance Red Bull can extract. After all, the Milton Keynes squad is not immune to mistakes. For many, a lack-lustre winter of development is seen as the best chance to fight the reigning Champions.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-17506 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2023\/11\/SI202311260273-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing, Charles Leclerc of Ferrari and George Russell of Mercedes on the podium at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, 2023\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2023\/11\/SI202311260273-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2023\/11\/SI202311260273-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2023\/11\/SI202311260273-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2023\/11\/SI202311260273-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2023\/11\/SI202311260273-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2023\/11\/SI202311260273-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2023\/11\/SI202311260273-1200x800.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Speaking to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/formula1\/67766064\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BBC,<\/a> Christian Horner admitted that unlocking more speed in 2024 will be difficult:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>&#8220;We have got up the [development] curve quicker than others, b<\/em><em>ut we are seeing diminishing returns.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;And with the lack of wind tunnel time we&#8217;ve had, even though we transitioned early, we still had less time in practice than a great many of our opponents.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;So [we] have had to be very frugal and selective.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>These comments can be interpreted in many different ways. For some, Horner might be playing down expectations and trying to go under the radar. This is quite a common tactic in Formula 1, which at one stage was very commonly associated with Mercedes and Toto Wolff.<\/p>\n<p>Pre-season talk doesn&#8217;t always translate to on-track performance, as teams have learned the hard way since 2022.<\/p>\n<p>However, it must be said that still, Red Bull faces plenty of challenges. Although few will be sympathetic to the Austrian outfit after such a dominant campaign, staying at the top isn&#8217;t easy in F1.<\/p>\n<p>As usual, pre-season testing will be the first indication of the winners and losers in F1&#8217;s development war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Red Bull dominated F1 news with their excellence in 2023, but Christian Horner admits next season will be a new challenge. With development in F1 so heavily restricted, starting off strongly is crucial. This is where Red Bull has excelled, with Adrian Newey and Pierre Wache establishing a strong foundation for these F1 regulations. Over [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":17640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2186,68,23,78],"class_list":["post-17663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-2023-formula-1-season","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-red-bull-racing"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}