Former Red Bull chief technical officer Adrian Newey revealed he had concerns about the team’s car development direction before his departure last year. Although Red Bull started the season strongly by winning seven of the first ten races, their performance declined, securing only two more victories and losing the constructors’ championship to McLaren. Max Verstappen claimed all the team’s wins and secured the drivers’ title, while his teammate, Sergio Perez, struggled and finished eighth.
Newey’s exit was announced in May, and he soon stopped attending races. While his absence coincided with Red Bull’s drop in form, he clarified that his worries about the car’s performance predated this period. He acknowledged that McLaren and Ferrari had improved their cars significantly, but he also noticed issues with Red Bull’s development. According to Newey, the RB20 and even the late stages of the 2023 car had become increasingly difficult to drive. While Verstappen could manage, albeit uncomfortably, Perez struggled even more, highlighting a growing performance gap between the teammates.
Newey believed that Red Bull’s engineers did not recognize the need to change the car’s development direction. He speculated that a lack of experience led them to persist with the same approach, ultimately worsening the car’s handling issues to the point where even Verstappen struggled. As Verstappen became more vocal about the car’s handling difficulties, the team attempted to mitigate them through set-up adjustments. However, Newey argued that set-up changes could only mask the problem rather than solve it, as they primarily fine-tune the car’s characteristics rather than address fundamental design flaws.
Many teams, including Red Bull, faced challenges in car development under the current ground-effect regulations. Newey explained that these regulations generate significant downforce through the car’s floor but lack the side skirts used in older designs to maintain aerodynamic stability. As a result, modern ground-effect cars suffer from aerodynamic instabilities, particularly due to airflow leakage from the sides. While this approach helps generate downforce, balancing it with stability remains a major challenge for F1 engineers.
