“Something went wrong” with the Red Bull F1 car

Max Verstappen believes something “went wrong” in Red Bull’s development, leading to balance problems with its 2024 Formula 1 car.

Verstappen and Red Bull dominated the field at the start of the season, but McLaren’s Lando Norris’ dominant win at the Dutch Grand Prix underlined once again that the Woking-based team has now overtaken Red Bull as the fastest team in the field.

Red Bull’s campaign first hit a snag in May as the team faced a series of bumpier circuits, with the Monaco Grand Prix being a particular problem spot.

But rather than a single weakness on bumps and kerbs, Verstappen said subsequent races gradually revealed other issues affecting the car’s balance, which has been a major strength of the Red Bull in the past. This appears to have affected the RB20’s speed and also affected tyre wear.

“It wasn’t the case in the first few races, but something in the car made it difficult to drive,” said Verstappen after finishing second at Zandvoort, 22 seconds behind Norris, his first defeat at a home race.

“At the moment it is very difficult to say exactly where this is coming from. And of course this is damaging our performance on one lap, but also our long-distance running.

“It was the same limitations all weekend. I had pretty much the same balance from FP1 to the race, so it’s just very difficult to resolve that at the moment.”

“It seems like we’re just too slow, but we’re also pretty bad at degradation at the moment. That’s a bit weird because I think in recent years we’ve usually been pretty good at that.

“So something has gone wrong with the car recently and we need to understand that and try to improve quickly. There is just no balance, either front or rear.”

Verstappen overtook polesitter Norris right at the start after the Briton got off to a rocky start, but on lap 18 Norris easily passed him to secure a dominant second win of his career as the Dutchman felt his car was becoming increasingly unresponsive to his inputs.

“I just drove my own race, looked after the tyres and tried to do my best,” he added. “But at some point nothing was spinning or reacting. Then Lando got pretty close the first time, like he said, he was close but not close enough.”

“And then there was nothing I could do on the next lap. So after he was over, I just focused on my race and tried to finish second.”

Verstappen heads to this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix at Monza with a 70-point lead over Norris in the Drivers’ Championship, while McLaren is within 30 points of Red Bull in the Constructors’ Championship.