With four world championships and 63 wins to his name, Max Verstappen certainly knows what is required to develop a car per his liking. When he faced troubles with the RB20 last season, the Dutchman consistently pushed his team to resolve those issues with adequate feedback.
Verstappen also made some critical remarks about the 2024 car’s rear wing, which Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache has taken note of but revealed that he disagrees with the Dutchman.
Verstappen wanted Red Bull to come up with a low downforce rear wing to help them deal with their balance issues better. It became a known fact last season that the RB20 was not the best car on tracks that had several bumps and kerbs, with both Verstappen and Sergio Perez often complaining about the same.
Wache has now explained why Red Bull were not able to sort out this issue besides also underscoring the budget cap constraints. “It has to do with the budget cap. It’s not that something is worse just because you have a different shape than other teams,” he told the Dutch edition of Motorsport.com, per F1 Maximaal.
Wache feels that with the RB20’s balance issues, having a different rear wing wasn’t their “biggest problem”. They understood that it was a “deeper” issue in the car’s design.
“I certainly don’t reject his comment that we didn’t do enough, but that doesn’t automatically mean we will find a better solution”, Wache added about Verstappen’s criticism.
Per Wache, Red Bull cannot blindly copy their rivals as they need to see what will work on their car. Nevertheless, the Frenchman has assured that they will look to find “something better” ahead of the 2025 season.
As for problems with their rear wing, Red Bull perhaps faced the most issues during the Las Vegas Grand Prix as they had a much draggier rear wing than their rivals.
How did Red Bull manage their issues with their rear wing?
To reduce the loss of speed on the straights because of the high drag, Red Bull entered the Las Vegas GP with a trimmed rear and beam wing arrangement rather than designing a completely new rear wing.
“We did not forget a rear wing” ❌
Christian Horner on rumours Red Bull brought the wrong specification rear wing for the Las Vegas race weekend ️ pic.twitter.com/LwRHs6GoAq
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) November 23, 2024
Although this arrangement was not enough to challenge their rivals, as Red Bull lost around 4-6 mph on the straights, it did help them reduce the damage and help Verstappen clinch his fourth consecutive title.
Red Bull had a wider range of issues on the RB20 besides the draggy rear wing. Their stiff ride issue on bumpy tracks and the balance issues diverted their resources towards finding an optimized solution on those aspects.
Moreover, it was a compromise to avoid designing a lower downforce rear wing for select tracks like Baku, Monza, and Las Vegas, where straight-line speed was critical. It is just a reflection of how teams have to make tough calls owing to the cost cap constraints on car development.
