{"id":22171,"date":"2024-07-21T14:56:32","date_gmt":"2024-07-21T18:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=22171"},"modified":"2024-07-21T15:01:46","modified_gmt":"2024-07-21T19:01:46","slug":"verstappen-leads-concerns-about-red-bull-upgrades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/07\/21\/verstappen-leads-concerns-about-red-bull-upgrades\/","title":{"rendered":"Verstappen leads concerns about Red Bull upgrades"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Hungarian GP was a tricky event for Red Bull<\/a>, with Max Verstappen missing out on a podium for the first time since Monaco. The RB20 lacked the pace to match McLaren, who remain the fastest team – despite Red Bull’s latest upgrades.<\/p>\n

Red Bull development stagnates<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Red Bull were the only front-running team with a major upgrade package in Budapest.<\/p>\n

The technical department led by Pierre Wache expected to take a major step forward.<\/p>\n

With Mercedes gathering momentum – and McLaren <\/a>now the established benchmark – improvements from Milton Keynes were necessary.<\/p>\n

However, the feedback about the latest iteration of the RB20 has been negative from the beginning<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Verstappen was not overly thrilled at the end of Friday Practice, though the team reserved judgement for qualifying and race day.<\/p>\n

The Dutchman narrowly missed out on Pole Position, but the situation was worse over a Grand Prix distance.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Max Verstappen of the Netherlands during the F1 Grand Prix of Hungary at Hungaroring. (Photo by Mark Thompson\/Getty Images) \/\/ Getty Images\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

McLaren’s race pace is still supreme, with the MCL38 also excellent at tyre management.<\/p>\n

Red Bull have fallen behind, not only in terms of performance but in terms of driver comfort.<\/p>\n

Max Verstappen is not happy with the car’s new characteristics<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The RB20 is less compliant than the Triple World Champion would like, becoming more understeer-y in nature.<\/p>\n

Although drawing conclusions from one race weekend is difficult, the trajectory at Red Bull is concerning.<\/a><\/p>\n

Verstappen, Marko concerned for remainder of 2024<\/strong><\/h3>\n

A significant portion of the team’s development budget went into this weekend’s upgrades.<\/p>\n

Significant changes were made to the car in the internal sections (like the floor) and external bodywork.<\/p>\n

However, their impact on performance is falling well short of expectations<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The race helmet of Max Verstappen on the grid during the F1 Grand Prix of Hungary. (Photo by Mark Thompson\/Getty Images) \/\/ Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Considering the leap forward McLaren achieved with their Miami upgrades, the recent progress at Milton Keynes is underwhelming<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Unless Red Bull can unlock something with set-up in Belgium, the remainder of 2024 could be McLaren’s to lose.<\/p>\n

The team’s internal struggles, which culminated in Adrian Newey’s departure, are common knowledge in the F1 paddock.<\/p>\n

Whilst Christian Horner<\/a> will try to downplay the impact of this off-track instability on the teams’s trajectory, it seems fair to say Red Bull are no longer the dominant force in Formula 1.<\/p>\n

Max Verstappen certainly isn’t optimistic about the situation<\/strong>. After qualifying, he said bluntly that people needed to “wake up”<\/a> within the team.<\/p>\n

He argued that Red Bull have been ridding their luck in recent months, making clear the current situation is unsustainable.<\/p>\n

After today’s race, Helmut Marko shared his assessment of the worsening performance of the RB20.<\/p>\n

For the first time in almost three years, the Austrian team has its back against the wall<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hungarian GP was a tricky event for Red Bull, with Max Verstappen missing out on a podium for the first time since Monaco. The RB20 lacked the pace to match McLaren, who remain the fastest team – despite Red Bull’s latest upgrades. Red Bull development stagnates Red Bull were the only front-running team with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":22062,"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":[2220,68,610,2294,78],"class_list":["post-22171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-2024-formula-1-season","tag-f1","tag-helmut-marko","tag-rb20","tag-red-bull-racing"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22171","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=22171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}