Red Bull Claims To Have Addressed Max Verstappen's Complaints - 'We’ve Licked Our Wounds'

Saajan Jogia | Sep 13, 2024

May 3, 2024; Miami Gardens, Florida, USA; Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen (1) enters the track during F1 practice at Miami International Autodrome. Mandatory Credit: John David Mercer-Imagn Images / John David Mercer-Imagn Images

Red Bull chief engineer Paul Monaghan has expressed immense confidence in the modifications made to the RB20 F1 car for the upcoming Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku. It has been claimed that the team worked hard for the past two weeks to address the complaints made by Max Verstappen.

The Milton Keynes outfit had been under significant pressure since a mid-season upgrade disturbed the car's overall balance, leading Verstappen to face handling problems in the following races. The challenges multiplied significantly after the summer break though, causing Red Bull to come under attack from the Dutchman.

At his home race in Zandvoort, Verstappen finished 23 seconds behind race winner Lando Norris, and in the subsequent race at Monza, he secured his worst result of the season so far with a sixth-place finish. His teammate, Sergio Perez, also struggled with similar issues, finishing eighth.

The three-time world champion's warnings have prompted Red Bull to modify the floor of its car, improving the pressure gradients to enhance airflow. Monaghan revealed that the team would not "sit still" after Verstappen complained, following his disappointing finish at the Italian GP. He told Formu1a.uno:

“We’re not going to sit still from his [Verstappen’s] comments or our performance in Monza and do nothing to bring here and hope.

“There are many ways to address the car’s behaviour from Monza, and it touches all the aspects of the car, not just whether we revise a floor geometry or a wing geometry.

“So it would be naive of us to think that we can just leave it. So we’ve licked our wounds, learned our lessons.

“The proof in the pudding will be, obviously Sunday, but we’ve tried to bring changes to the car, and make it better.

“And we don’t want to watch Monza again. It wasn’t the most pleasant event for us, so we’d like to improve relative for our position.”

Red Bull has also planned upgrades for the Singapore Grand Prix the following weekend as part of its "ongoing lessons." He added:

“The lessons are kind of ongoing, and the immediate reaction tends to be at the later races.

“So it’s a testament to everybody that we got it here. 

“A lot of hard work, and that hard work will continue. Singapore’s only a week away.

“So it that will be potentially another evolution for us. The scale of the update kind of determines the phase lag in there.

“So if we’ve managed to do it for this race, it’s not the biggest one we’ll ever undertake in terms of geometry change. It’s subtle.

“Could the effect be good? Yes. And I think the proof in the pudding will be on Sunday afternoon.”

Fortunately for Red Bull, it will have a good three weeks in hand to go deeper into its fixes for the US GP after the Singapore round. However, Monaghan cautions that the race weekend in Austin also features a sprint race, meaning the team must prep perfectly for the weekend's practice round. He said:

“It gives us the freedom to potentially do more.

“The disciplined approach is to say is it valuable enough to spend the money to do it, to take it to Austin?

“And don’t forget, Austin’s a Sprint race, so you’re going to roll the dice in P1 and then, okay, yes, no, indifferent? Keep it, not keep it?

“But that then leaves us potentially with few of any one piece. So your choices for Austin are team dependent, and somewhat confidence dependent.”