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Verstappen spotted Red Bull problem himself: 'We started from scratch'
After a strong start to the season, Red Bull Racing began to struggle more and more as the season unfolded, especially after the Miami Grand Prix. Max Verstappen describes the moment when he realised his Formula 1 team had to more or less start their plans from scratch.
Verstappen felt from the start of the F1 season that something was wrong with the RB20. However, as he was still winning races, no immediate action was taken. As Red Bull introduced updates throughout the season, the problems became more and more prominent. After the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, the team concluded that drastic changes were needed.
Verstappen spotted Red Bull problem himself
"All plans for new parts, which were to come afterwards, could be thrown in the bin. The team actually started from scratch after that. Before that, they could not find the exact problem," Verstappen said in conversation with De Telegraaf. The Dutch driver played an important role himself in finding the cause of the problems.
He describes a point when he saw a number of graphs when looking at the data with his team. Among other things, he saw aerodynamic shifts when turning in, but also changes in terms of driving heights. Verstappen noticed that the data differed from last year and when he raised this with the team, it was confirmed that this was where the problem was.
"I hadn't seen those lines, those charts, before. I then said that it was clear what we needed to work on, because the engineers obviously know exactly what had been changed compared to last year's car," Verstappen continued.
Improvements were visible in the closing stages of the season and the Dutch driver managed to win two races, although both wins came on weekends when Red Bull struggled in initial sessions. There is certainly a lot of work ahead for 2025, but Verstappen is confident that his team now know what is needed to be competitive again next year.
This article was written in collaboration with Nicole Mulder.
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