At Red Bull, chaos is the answer. © ANSA / YURI KOCHETKOV

Employees flee: Chaos at Red Bull

The world champion team Red Bull has lost its way and is trying hard to turn things around in the two world championship title races. After six Grands Prix without a win, a mixture of hope, uncertainty and despair is spreading.

September 12, 2024

From: apa

This development is all the more serious given that those responsible for the McLaren team have simultaneously managed to work their way up from being an outsider to being number 1 in Formula 1 based on their recent results.

The origin of Red Bull's predicament is the car, or rather its handling. Planned improvements to the RB20 before the Grands Prix of Japan, Emilia Romagna, Spain and the Netherlands have come to nothing. "We have created a vehicle that reacts extremely sensitively to the smallest changes," said motorsport consultant Helmut Marko.

A great bloodletting

The thought of whether the resigned chief designer Adrian Newey could have prevented the crash is irrelevant for the Styrian. "He was no longer involved in all the details of the vehicle development in the spring." The setbacks are striking at a time when, in addition to Newey, important pillars of the team's success, such as Dan Fallows, Rob Marshall and Jonathan Wheatley, have left or will be leaving the team.

Chief designer Adrian Newey is not the only one leaving Red Bull. © ANSA / ALI HAIDER

Fallows, the former head of the aerodynamics department, now works for Aston Martin. Marshall, who built up the racing team together with Marko, has moved on to rival McLaren after 17 years at Red Bull. Sporting director Wheatley is leaving at the end of the season and will be breathing air as team boss for the Audi/Sauber team from next summer.

The balance of the car no longer works. "This in turn leads to increased tire wear," added Marko. Team boss Christian Horner calls it a vicious circle that the team has gotten into. The difficulty is that fixing one problem would cause new problems in other areas.

“We have created a vehicle that reacts extremely sensitively to the smallest changes” Motorsport consultant Helmut Marko.

Then there is the question of where to put the lever on the car. Finding the point at which the development work went in the wrong direction is difficult. Marko sees dismantling as a solution. "Then we hope to find the point at which the car was in balance. If we manage that, the car's behavior will be predictable again."

Keeping Verstappen happy

Time is also running out to keep Verstappen happy and – in the long term – in the team. For the Dutchman, the car has turned into “a monster” with which he sees not only the title in the team championship, but also the driver championship in great danger. In the constructors’ championship, McLaren has moved within eight points, and in the driver championship, McLaren’s Lando Norris has 62 points. Eight races and three sprints are still to come.

Max Verstappen is frustrated. © ANSA / Daniel Dal Zennaro

The increased range at the top of the Formula 1 hierarchy over the past few months is likely to influence the battle for the world championship crown. Behind the new leader McLaren, the Mercedes and Ferrari teams are on a par with Red Bull. Their drivers are therefore capable of finishing ahead of Verstappen. He recently said his goal was damage limitation. The realization that he is not capable of winning is obviously very painful for someone like him. "This whole thing is not getting me anywhere. I want to win races again," he said.