After suffering for pace at the 2024 Monaco GP, Max Verstappen has revealed that the team have a fundamental problem with the RB20. The three-time world champion also believes that the latest that the team can fix these issues is no sooner than the 2025 season.
Motorsport.com quoted the 26-year-old as explaining, “It is a fundamental problem, so it is not something that will be fixed within weeks. But we will work hard to find the problem and then try to get rid of it. I don’t know if we can do it this year but hopefully for next year.”
The RB20 suffers from instability on bumpy tracks. Further, the car is also prone to losing mechanical grip, inexplicably, when riding the kerbs or bumps. This problem was exposed at the Monaco GP as Max Verstappen could only muster a sixth-placed finish in both the Qualifying and the main Grand Prix.
️ “It is a fundamental problem”
Max Verstappen says Red Bull “clearly doesn’t understand” its struggles at the #MonacoGP as they have largely carried over from the previous two #F1 seasons ⬇️https://t.co/YjGzfAVUdi
— Autosport (@autosport) May 29, 2024
The concept of the RB20 has largely been carried over from the RB19 – which was also an evolution of the RB18. Hence, the team have been suffering from these low-speed and kerbing issues for the past three years. Last year, it cost the team victory at the Singapore GP as well.
But in previous years, their rivals were nowhere near them in terms of performance. Hence, despite these shortcomings, the RB18 and RB19 were able to compensate in other areas and still end up being the benchmark for the rest of the field. This time around, however, the likes of Ferrari and McLaren are close enough to expose Red Bulls’ vulnerability.
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Red Bull‘s issues started to surface from the 2024 Miami GP onwards. Lando Norris went on the clinch his first F1 Grand Prix win in the revised MCL38, and Max Verstappen finished seven seconds off the lead.
At the 2024 Emilia Romagna GP, the story was no different. Verstappen struggled throughout the practice sessions with understeer and loss of grip. However, the team turned it around with a few setup changes before Qualifying. Even though Verstappen won the race, it was by the slimmest of margins (0.7 seconds ahead of Norris).
These pictures sum up Red Bull’s big problem with Monaco.
Charles Leclerc able to aggressively attack & ride the kerb in his Ferrari while Max Verstappen can’t even afford to sniff the kerb. Both pics from their best Q3 laps. pic.twitter.com/yQJeMakpY2
— Daniel Valente ️ (@F1GuyDan) May 26, 2024
But Red Bulls’ luck finally ran out on the streets of the Principality. The contours of the Monaco Grand Prix are narrow, twisty, and bumpy. This saw the Dutchman lose the most amount of time to his rivals in the second and third sectors. However, Red Bull were not able to mitigate the issues this time around.
From how things have panned out so far, street circuits are likely to be a problematic area for Red Bull to conquer with the RB20’s characteristics. Hence, with the Canadian GP up next, Verstappen has predicted another long weekend for himself and the team.
