F1 Today | 'Downdates' and Marko puts more stress on Ricciardo and Perez

What are downdates?

With Hungary's upgrades, Red Bull hoped to close the emerging gap to McLaren again, but there appeared to be none of that. The McLarens were significantly faster than the Red Bulls, and managed to grab a neat one-two near Budapest. After that race, Max Verstappen was critical of the continued development of his RB20, among other things. The Dutchman then openly expressed doubts about the introduced updates.

For the Dutch Grand Prix, the reigning constructors' world champions did not bring any significant updates. Speaking to Kleine Zeiting, Marko even talks about 'downdates'. By this, he seems to imply that some of the earlier updates have already disappeared.

Marko give Perez and Ricciardo some more stress

After his spectacular debut for Alphatauri in 2023, it was not a question of if, but when Red Bull would give Lawson the chance. The Austrian team initially opted to let Daniel Ricciardo drive alongside Yuki Tsunoda for Alphatauri, which has since been renamed VCARB. But with Ricciardo and Sergio Perez getting mixed results in 2024, the doors seem to have opened for Lawson.

Verstappen shuts down Marko's claim

At the media day in Zandvoort ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix, Max Verstappen addressed the alleged downdates that have taken place on his RB20. In the morning, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko hinted that the updates of recent weeks would have already disappeared.

Before the summer break, Verstappen indicated that an evaluation needed to take place to improve the car. And that evaluation has taken place. "Absolutely, we are working hard on that. Hopefully we can get some answers to that this weekend and we'll go from there. We'll see what we can improve on the car," Verstappen said. Verstappen continued to counter Marko's statements.

Hamilton demands F1 to race in Africa

Formula 1 has not raced in Africa since 1993. The event was held at Kyalami, but since then, F1 hasn't visited the continent. There has been recent talk over the sport returning to Africa, with Rwanda currently in talks to host the next African Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton is adamant that F1 should already be racing in the continent.  

"The current excuse," Hamilton revealed, "Is that maybe there's not a track that's ready, but there is at least one track that's ready there. And in the short term, we should just get on that track and have that part of the calendar and then work on building out something moving forward. That'll be a conversation I have with Stefano [Domenicali], who I know is also wishing to make sure."

Hamilton's response to Bono's promotion

The news that shocked everyone at the start of the 2024 season was that Lewis Hamilton would leave Mercedes at the end of the season to join Ferrari. Questions were asked straight away whether Hamilton's long-time race engineer Peter 'Bono' Bonnington would depart Mercedes and move to Ferrari as well. However this was shut down after Mercedes confirmed Bonnginton's promotion to head of race engineering. This is how Hamilton responded!