The 2024 Formula 1 season was not an easy one for Red Bull. There was trouble behind the scenes, and on the track too. For many observers, the increasingly weak performance of the RB20 was inexplicable. Team boss Christian Horner explains why this became a problem in the first place.
In recent years, Red Bull has been the ultimate Formula 1 benchmark not only on the track, but also in development racing. Season after season, the team provided its drivers with the best, fastest and most complete car – from the first to the last race. Things were different in 2024.
Although the RB20 was by far the best in the entire field in the first races of the season, with the first major updates, McLaren and Ferrari initially moved ahead of them and eventually even passed them by a long way. How could Red Bull let itself be left behind like that?
Formula 1: At Red Bull the data doesn’t add up
According to Christian Horner, a lack of data interaction was the decisive reason. There was different data in the wind tunnel than in the simulator. On the track, the computers suddenly spat out numbers that neither matched the simulator nor the wind tunnel.
If the data from these three areas just doesn’t add up, “it’s like having three clocks that show you different times,” Horner told motorsport.com. The dilemma: “Which one [Zahl] do you believe? In the end, you believe in the stopwatch on the track because it doesn’t lie,” explained the team boss.
“And then we had a small performance window”
Ultimately, the most important factor for evaluating the car was the drivers, Horner added: “The biggest sensor you have is the driver. And Max [Verstappen] played a key role this year.”
According to Horner, the team noticed that there was something wrong with the interaction of the data when the victories were no longer easy to achieve.
In Imola it was recognized that the updates had made the car more difficult to control. “And then we had a small performance window,” said the team boss, describing the serious consequence that Red Bull was unable to properly get under control by the end of the season.