How Red Bull’s previous dominance masked issues that it faced in 2024

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has conceded the squad’s previous dominance under Formula 1’s ground-effect regulatory era masked “a lot of the issues” with its cars.

The Milton Keynes-based outfit failed to hold onto its constructors’ championship from 2023 as McLaren and Ferrari surpassed its points total across the season – the former triumphing after a showdown in Abu Dhabi’s finale.

Max Verstappen pointed to issues with the car at a number of races across the campaign, starting at the Chinese Grand Prix, with former team-mate Sergio Perez struggling to extract the potential from the car as well.

Asked whether these issues were different to the difficulty in finding a balance sweet spot with the RB19, which failed to win only one race in 2023, Horner told Motorsport.com: “I think it was just more accentuated. I think there were signs of this already last year and I think it just became more accentuated.

“The problem is we won 22 out of 23 races last year. That masks a lot of the issues.”

On issues with data-to-track correlation, Horner explained: “That’s again something that we’ve been looking to try and understand because suddenly you… there are many theories. Did something change? Are we just at the limit of the tools capabilities in a set of regulations and the cars have converged? And so the differences you’re talking about are minuscule but have a big material effect.

“So there are many, many aspects that [mean] that work is still ongoing. I think the encouraging thing is that the tools now are starting to correlate more with what we’re seeing on the simulator.

“We’re talking a little bit of everything,” Horner added, noting the influence of the wind tunnel as well as the simulator. “And when they don’t add up, it’s like having three watches that are all telling different times.

“So, which one do you believe? Ultimately, you believe the stopwatch on the track because that one doesn’t lie. And, of course, the biggest sensor you’ve got in that is the driver and that’s where Max played a key role this year. “

After Verstappen’s complaints at various points through the season, Red Bull rediscovered enough form to add to its win tally and confirm the Dutchman’s fourth drivers’ title, even though the constructors’ crown slipped through the net.

On when the team realised the correlation issues were affecting performance and that Verstappen’s feeling was a good barometer for development, Horner suggested: “I think that it was around those races that we were winning the hard way.

“Imola – we brought an update to Imola that perhaps didn’t… it made the characteristics of the car harder. And we ended up with a very small window of performance. I think the shape of our performance curve became very steep and so that inevitably made the car a lot harder to drive.”