Former F1 strategist Bernie Collins says Red Bull's RB20 was 'a risk'
F1 News
Former F1 strategist and Sky Sports F1 presenter Bernie Collins believes that Red Bull took a big risk by changing their car concept for the 2024 season. The ex-Aston Martin and Force India strategy analyst said that Red Bull may struggle to upgrade their RB20 due to its flaws, which will allow Ferrari and McLaren to catch the reining champions.
Speaking on the Sky Sports F1 podcast, Collins said: "I think that the big worry for Red Bull is they started the year with this very different concept car to what we'd seen before. We were all a bit surprised that they'd changed the car in any way, given how strong the car had been. More to the Mercedes style."
The RB20 concept was 'a risk', says Collins
Although they still lead the constructors, Red Bull has without a doubt not been dominating the 2024 season. Ferrari has won two races, and McLaren has also won in Miami. "Red Bull Now we're starting to hear little things like, oh, we've not quite got the correlation right, or we're not quite getting upgrades working as expected. All these little things with a different concept car are not to are not to guarantee it. I saw a different concept, and I thought, oh, that's a risk," explained Collins.
"Then you see race one and you think, oh, they've nailed it again. Now we're starting to see that actually maybe they are struggling to put those upgrades on. That might be maybe an overly optimistic or whatever, but there are small signs that they're not as comfortable as they were, for sure.”
It remains to be seen whether or not Red Bull will struggle again in Canada, another relatively bumpy track. Red Bull struggled with this all throughout the Monaco Grand Prix weekend and will be working to fix their flaws to be comfortably ahead of Ferrari and McLaren, who are on their tails.