Dan Fallows, the technical director of Aston Martin believes Red Bull are beatable despite the Austrian team’s astonishing performances throughout the 2023 F1 season where they won 21 out of 22 races. Now, Lando Norris has come out to share the same belief, but with a twist. The McLaren driver thinks Red Bull can be caught, but he isn’t sure how it’s going to happen over the whole season.
Norris spoke to PitDebrief about this, as per Junaid Samodien on X, “Not a lot to add, to be honest. I think it was pretty much covered, if you were to say, are they beatable, you’re going to have to say yes. I think we’re going to want to believe to say yes, because we were very close at certain times. And at certain times, we did beat them.”
Following this, he added, “So the question is, can we beat them over a season? Because I think that’s going to be the challenging thing, and I think that’s going to be very difficult to do with how well they’re performing.”
Notably, Fallows used to be Red Bull’s head of aerodynamics. Therefore, his assumption of cracking Adrian Newey’s code cannot be entirely shoved aside.
MCL38 here we go. pic.twitter.com/SQIyYBu6qk
— Lando Norris (@LandoNorris) February 14, 2024
On the other hand, McLaren indeed outperformed Red Bull on multiple occasions in the latter parts of last season. One such occasion was the Qatar GP Sprint where Oscar Piastri won the Sprint over Max Verstappen. Both Piastri and Norris also took P1 and P2 ahead of Verstappen in the Sprint shootout that weekend.
Apart from this, the Papayas were faster than Verstappen and Co. at certain sectors and carried more speed than the mighty RB19s. Even Ferrari managed to beat them to win the 2023 Singapore GP but finished way off in terms of championship standings compared to Christian Horner’s team.
Therefore, it is indeed a question of beating the Austrian team throughout the whole season. As for Red Bull, they are ready to reveal their RB20 on February 15th, but fans have already had a glimpse of their shakedown in Silverstone.
The shakedown showed the RB20 look like a rocketship and fans are amazed to see it. McLaren also unveiled their 2024 F1 challenger – the MCL38 and will look to carry their advancement forward.
How are rivals ready to take on Red Bull in 2024?
Red Bull took their RB20 for shakedown in Silverstone on February 13th. Footage from the event showed magnificent works on the upcoming ‘rocket ship’. Firstly, Verstappen’s revelation of the livery being the same seems true. However, on the car concept, it showed the existence of a narrow and aggressive horizontal sidepod design.
No sidepod inlets is one of the most insane innovations I’ve ever seen in my time watching F1. It is truly groundbreaking and aero benefits will be huge, don’t need a wind tunnel to see that. With development on PU limited it’ll be hard to replicate – advantage locked in for… pic.twitter.com/28QnhmNsQn
— Enzo (@Aperta) February 13, 2024
Mercedes tried something of this sort with their 2022 challenger – the W13 but failed miserably. They called it Zero sidepod. However, after failing to make it work in 2022, and the initial races of 2023, they scrapped it for having proper sidepods.
If Newey can make this work in the RB20 unlike Mercedes, Red Bull may be the fastest again. It is difficult to say without seeing the car in testing, but they could unlock some additional pace.
Nevertheless, Lando Norris, and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc all put up positive reviews of the MCL-38 and SF-24, respectively. Norris believes McLaren has done enough from their last year’s advantage. Meanwhile, Leclerc is happy with the handling of the new Ferrari car. Therefore, the upcoming season is going to be nothing but feisty. But the question remains, will they be enough to beat Max Verstappen and Red Bull throughout the entire season?
