Despite early season dominance in 2024, Red Bull Racing has only managed to find victory twice in the last ten grands prix. The team has struggled to figure out Max Verstappen’s rapid decline all summer, while teammate Sergio Perez has been hung out to dry for over a year. After this weekend’s abysmal Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Red Bull has lost the lead in the constructors’ championship to McLaren. In an interview with German publication Auto Motor und Sport, team boss and alleged sexual misconduct dickhead Christian Horner admitted the drop off of Perez over the last 18 months was actually an indication that something was wrong with the car.
“We traced the development history back and it turned out that the first mistake we made was with an underbody upgrade in 2023 in Barcelona,” said Horner. “That was also the grand prix from which Checo started having problems with the car. We just didn’t take it so seriously because Max kept winning.”
Earlier this year championship leader Max Verstappen complained that the car wasn’t right and the team didn’t know how to fix it. Prior to this weekend’s updates in Baku, he called his RB20 a “monster” of a car incapable of securing both championships. Considering this is a development of the car that won a dominant ten races in a row in 2023 and won seven of the first nine races in 2024, it’s difficult to see what happened until you look at the comparative performance of Sergio Perez.
Perez isn’t an all-time great talent driver like Max Verstappen clearly is. While Max has been up front winning frequently, Sergio hasn’t seen a podium since back in April, and hasn’t won a race since the previous April. His qualifying performances and long-run green-flag stints have been abysmal of late. It’s clear that Verstappen’s talents were hiding a difficult to drive machine.
Red Bull introduced a new floor for the RB20 in Baku, and while the car wasn’t immediately turned around, it was certainly racier for Sergio Perez, who outqualified and out-raced Verstappen on a street circuit that favors the Mexican’s driving style. Until his last-lap crash with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, Checo was on track for his best finish in months. It’s clear the new aero bits have brought back some of the speed that Red Bull has bled out since that wrong turn last year.
Remember this bit from Drive To Survive where Mercedes boss Toto Wolff and Christian Horner came to loggerheads about driver safety and car design? “You’ve got a problem, change your fucking car!” shouted Horner back then. Maybe he should listen to his own advice.