The cracks are starting to form in Red Bull’s F1 dominance armor. This year’s RB20 chassis struggles with bumps more than other teams and no longer has as stark a performance advantage as the RB19 was afforded for the 2023 season. Following the defending champion’s miserable sixth-place finish at the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend (the first time Red Bull has failed to win since 2019), Max opened up a bit about the team’s, and the car’s, failings.
“It is a fundamental problem, so it is not something that will be fixed within weeks,” Verstappen offered to Motorsport. “We need to understand what it is, because we clearly don’t understand it.”
“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.”
With a retirement on the books in Australia and failure to perform at the series’ slower Miami and Monaco races, Max Verstappen doesn’t have as comfortable a points lead as he would like this deep into the 2024 season. Not only has he lost out on three victories already this season, but his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez has struggled significantly in the 2024 car, failing to make up the points buffer that Verstappen also achieved by this point in the season last year.
“Any track that is bumpy or you have to ride a lot of kerbs, so the street circuits, will probably be a little bit tricky but hopefully by then we have a little bit of understanding of what is going on,” the champion continued.
With additional street circuits on the calendar, including Canada, Azerbaijan, Singapore, and Las Vegas, Verstappen certainly has reason to worry. His current 31 point lead over Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc could evaporate with a couple of poor finishes or failures.
If Ferrari and McLaren can continue to gain on the Red Bull team, this season could shake out to be somewhat interesting after all. But then again, Red Bull could have this problem fixed by the next round and all of this is a red herring. In which case Max will once again drive off to 30-second race victories and coast to an easy championship. I know which of these outcomes I would prefer.