Red Bull’s 2024 season has fallen from grace very quickly. While they started their championship defense on a dominant note like last year, several teams like McLaren, Mercedes, and Ferrari have out-developed the Austrian outfit. After the Italian GP, Red Bull seems to have slowed down to become the third or fourth fastest team in the pecking order.
Former racer and YouTuber, Scott Mansell has delved deep into the five different reasons behind the Bulls’ downfall in 2024 in his latest video. Mansell and F1 journalist, Lawrence Butcher highlighted the massive gains made by McLaren have certainly been a big factor in Red Bull not winning a Grand Prix in the last six race weekends.
However, besides the Woking outfit’s excellence on all fronts, Red Bull’s errors with the RB20’s development have also influenced their poor form.
Red Bull’s lesser wind tunnel time and CFD allowance
Due to their dominant winning run since 2022, the Milton Keynes outfit have got the lowest allowance on the wind tunnel testing time and the CFD items as per the Aerodynamic Testing Regulations (ATR). Still leading the constructors’ championship, Red Bull have only 70% of the baseline wind tunnel time and CFD items as per the sliding scale of the ATR.
Meanwhile, McLaren — who finished fourth in 2023 — had 85% allowance as per the ATR. This additional 15% wind tunnel time and CFD items would have benefitted the Woking outfit a lot to develop their 2024 car better than Red Bull.
Even for the second half of this season, Red Bull will have 5% less wind tunnel allowance than McLaren. Mansell and Butcher stated that this could again give the British team a slight edge in the development race.
Mansell also highlighted that Red Bull understand the need to bolster their aero department, which is why they have posted eight new job roles for the same in the last week. However, McLaren already have a three-pronged solid structure in place for handling their overall car development — which has helped them produce more effective upgrades in the 2024 season.
The RB20 has downforce, but the handling is a mess
As the season had unfolded, the RB20 has turned out to be a “peakier car”, as Max Verstappen has increasingly complained about the car not being easy to drive. Now, Christian Horner and the technical leaders at Red Bull have highlighted that their car is producing enough downforce.
However, it is the handling of the car that is restricting their performance. Mansell also highlighted the same, stating that the bits that produce downforce are working well, however, the bits that handle the load across the car have been performing poorly.
As a result, Verstappen has been complaining about the car’s balance between the front and the rear end being a disaster. The Dutchman often experiences a lot of understeer while turning in, and he cannot extract the most out of the car due to this lack of efficiency in the car’s handling.
Imagine where Red Bull would be without Max Verstappen.
This is the car with which Max won 7 races and 3 sprint races. The car does NOT turn. I’ve never seen this much understeer before pic.twitter.com/IGx55to48T
— Marc (@433_marc) August 25, 2024
Butcher stated that the team has hit the mechanical limits of the car, which is why they are struggling to pivot the RB20 concept to produce better handling performance.
The ‘bumps and kerbs’ weakness due to a stiffer suspension
Ever since the start of the ground effect era in 2022, Red Bull have used a stiffer suspension to counter the porpoising effect. However, this stiff suspension has affected its ride on tracks with a lot of bumps and kerbs — particularly street circuits.
Verstappen deemed this as a fundamental problem in the RB20 concept, which Red Bull may not be able to iron out before the 2025 season. Still, the Austrian outfit has tried to mitigate the effect of their stiff suspension via the setup of their car.
However, they have not achieved consistent results across a single race weekend from FP1 to the race on Sunday, to identify a pattern and find a permanent solution.
Mansell highlighted that upcoming street tracks like Baku and Singapore will further trouble Red Bull in this area of weakness and affect its overall mechanical grip which won’t be optimal to maximize performance.
FIA’s ban on asymmetric braking systems
There have been rumors about Red Bull and some other teams using asymmetric braking systems in their cars to counter their handling issues at either axle. Mansell highlighted how many reports claimed that such a braking system helped the Milton Keynes outfit in the early part of the 2024 season and was a reason for its dominant advantage.
However, the FIA updated the technical regulations after the Miami GP to explicitly ban the usage of any such systems that intentionally or systematically produce asymmetric braking forces on a set of brake pads on either the front or rear axle.
Looks as though RBR might have been running a clever rear cross-brake inertia valve before they were obliged to remove it before Miami. This could explain Max’s RR brake drama in MEL and his turn-in grief since China. @mollym_o @Racingnews365c @CameronF1TV @mrabdullahcelik pic.twitter.com/C1aa21NFHR
— Peter Windsor (@PeterDWindsor) August 15, 2024
Many journalists like Peter Windsor theorized about the same and stated that Red Bull’s handling problems with the RB20 have also aggravated after the Miami GP. However, there was no corroboration of such reports by either Red Bull or the FIA, as they claimed that no usage of any asymmetric braking system had happened.
The Sergio Perez factor
Apart from the several issues with the RB20, one of the major factors holding back Red Bull has been Sergio Perez’s inconsistent form. The Mexican driver started the season well with several podiums until the Chinese GP. However, since then, Perez has failed to secure a single podium finish and hasn’t finished in the top five as well after Miami.
Mansell highlighted the average points-scoring comparison between Verstappen and Perez speaks volumes of how much the latter has struggled to perform. Before the Imola GP, the #11 driver was scoring 17.1 points per race relative to Verstappen’s 22.7 points. However, this average has fallen to four points per race after Imola relative to the Dutchman’s 16.7 points.
As a result, Red Bull are fighting in the constructors’ championship with one hand tied behind their back. Currently, the Milton Keynes outfit have 446 points to their name. However, McLaren’s rise has got them within eight points of the reigning champions with 438 points.
McLaren continue to close the gap to Red Bull #F1 #ItalianGP pic.twitter.com/hy9tDp9dDk
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 1, 2024
Meanwhile, even Ferrari — who endured a slump in performance since Monaco — are back in the hunt for the championship after the Italian GP with 407 points in P3. So, all in all, if Red Bull don’t improve their car’s performance to fight back in the remaining eight races, they will certainly lose the constructors’ championship in 2024.
On the other hand, while Verstappen still holds a 62-point advantage in the drivers’ standings, the current trajectory of performance may help Lando Norris to chase down that advantage and beat him to the drivers’ championship too.
