Adrian Newey believes a “lack of experience” from Red Bull’s technical staff could explain why it persevered with its car concept, leading to an alarming slump from the RB20.
After starting last season with seven wins from the first 10 races, the Red Bull machine’s form fell away, with the nadir coming at the Italian Grand Prix after which Max Verstappen branded the car as an ‘undriveable monster’ after finishing sixth.
Team-mate Sergio Perez routinely complained of being unable to drive the car as on the limit as Verstappen, who ultimately won the title after a late surge with wins in São Paulo and Qatar.
Usually, when such problems arose for Red Bull in the past, it would call on chief technical officer Newey to solve the issue.
But he quit the team in May 2024 and was not on hand to offer his expertise, with Aston Martin to now benefit from March 1.
Observing where he thought Red Bull went wrong, Newey pointed to the team not listening to Perez’s feedback as a potential reason.
“Part of it was McLaren and Ferrari developing their cars and doing a very good job at developing their cars,” Newey told AMuS.
“I think Red Bull, from what I could see, the 2024 car, and through the very last stages of 2023 started to become more difficult to drive. Of course, Max could handle that. It didn’t suit him but he could handle it.
“Checo couldn’t, so you also started to see more of a difference in performance between team-mates, Max and Checo.”
Confirming that difference carried over into early 2024, Newey added: “But the car was still quick enough to be able to cope with it.
“It’s something I started to become concerned about but not many other people in the organisation seemed to be very concerned about.
“From what I could see from the outside, but I don’t know, the guys at Red Bull – this is no criticism – but perhaps through lack of experience, kept going in that same direction, and the problem became more and more acute to the point even Max found it difficult to drive.”
