F1 News
Waché sees Red Bull lead shrinking: 'But don't panic'
- Ludo van Denderen
For the British Grand Prix, Red Bull Racing brought a new floor, and in a fortnight in Hungary, the Austrian racing stable again plans to introduce some significant updates. Indeed, Red Bull wants to return to the days when it was hugely dominant. Lately, that has not been the case, and McLaren seems to have surpassed Max Verstappen's team. For Pierre Waché, Red Bull's technical director, there is no reason to panic.
It sometimes takes months before an update from the drawing board is actually put on Verstappen and Sergio Perez's RB20. Then it remains to be seen if practice is as much as theory; does the update indeed deliver performance? In recent weeks, the new gadgets on the Red Bull do not appear to have been such that they allowed the team to maintain its previous lead over McLaren in particular.
Red Bull sticks to established path
Waché, Red Bull's technical boss, cannot help but acknowledge in De Telegraaf that Red Bull has been less than dominant in recent times. "But it makes no sense to press the panic button right then," says Waché, who looks at the current period in two ways. First operationally, with the question of how the car can perform in the best possible way. Then also with the factory, looking at the long term.
"You can speed things up, but panicking is not the right attitude. We are working with 300 engineers. If you then change your mind every five minutes, that is the wrong way," is the Frenchman's conviction.
This article was written in collaboration with Olly Darcy