The 2024 Monaco GP exposed Red Bull’s limitations and their competitiveness has been pulled into question after Max Verstappen struggled to find form on the streets of the Principality. But even though the upcoming Canadian GP threatens to pose the same problems, Red Bull advisor, Helmut Marko is confident that the Dutchman can pull a favorable result out of the bag.
F1Maximaal.nl quoted the Austrian as saying,
“On circuits where we will not be very competitive, we can always count on the Verstappen factor. He is currently in top form and he can make the difference.”
The RB20 has shown that it is prone to struggle on street circuits. The aerodynamic characteristics of the ground-effects era of Red Bull cars have handed them a handicap on tracks that are bumpy in nature or when the fastest line around the track is over kerbs.
HELMUT MARKO: “On circuits where we won’t be the most competitive, we can count on the Verstappen factor, he is in full form and makes the difference” pic.twitter.com/9wopdAPYau
— Verstappen News (@verstappenews) May 31, 2024
Marko also revealed that raising the car’s height to make it more compliant over kerbs would worsen their problems. The current regulations have shaped the RB20 to be at its optimum when run at a lower height. Any adjustments on that end would reportedly lose the Milton-Keynes-based team a ton of downforce.
Verstappen, however, is looking on the bright side. Although he admits that Montreal won’t be an easy track for Red Bull, the 26-year-old believes nothing can get as bad as Monaco. According to him, the recently resurfaced Canadian GP track is bound to give the fans a few surprises.
Has Red Bull lost its edge in 2024?
In 2022 and 2023, Red Bull dominated F1, with the team winning 21 out of 22 races in the latter year. Verstappen won 19 of them and the expectation was to continue with his domination. However, this year, the Austrian stable seems to have gotten something wrong with the car.
This might still not be the case. The RB20 is an evolution of the concept of that the team ran in 2022 as well as 2023. Therefore, the limitations should also remain the same.
What has changed, however, is the work Red Bull’s rivals have done over the winter-break. Ferrari and McLaren have closed the gap down to Red Bull. This has made the margins really small at the font of the grid. Even though the RB20 remains a force to reckon with, it has been left exposed in certain situation.
