Source:REUTERS/LISA LEUTNER
[Saba Sports News] Former Red Bull F1 team designer Adrian Newey revealed in an exclusive interview with AMuS that the lack of experience in the Red Bull technical team after his departure may be a key factor in the team’s declining competitiveness in 2024. Newey stated that the Red Bull car for the 2024 season had begun to become difficult to handle, even tracing back to the latter stages of the 2023 season. Of course, this drawback could be technically adapted by Verstappen, but Perez could not. Therefore, from the start of the 2023 season, the performance gap between the two Red Bull drivers began to widen. This trend continued into the early 2024 season, although Red Bull’s car still had a speed advantage. At that time, he began to feel worried, but it seemed that not many people within the team were genuinely concerned. This is not a criticism, but the Red Bull team may have developed along the original path due to a lack of experience, leading to increasingly serious problems, ultimately making it difficult for even Verstappen to handle the car. Part of the reason is the ground effect under the current regulations, which means that the car does not have the sealed side skirts it once did, making it consistently susceptible to aerodynamic instability. Engineers need to find a balance between generating downforce and maintaining handling stability, which is a very tricky issue. Newey’s analysis aligns with previous statements from Red Bull’s technical director Pierre Wache. Wache had previously revealed to The Race that the team did not pay enough attention to some handling characteristics exposed by the RB19 while upgrading the RB20.