An update shake-up, conspiracy or FIA intervention?

One of the biggest unknowns about the 2024 Formula 1 season is how Red Bull went from crushing the opposition up to the Chinese GP to being on the backfoot since Miami.

Max Verstappen’s victory in Shanghai, his fourth out of five races at the start of this season, came with nearly identical 13-second margins at the front in that weekend’s sprint and main grand prix. The world champion had been pretty much unchallenged up to that point (and would likely have won Australia were it not for his brake problem) and there had been little indication from outside that the RB20 was anything but well clear of the opposition.

But just two weeks later, as F1 returned to action in Miami, Red Bull’s problems suddenly manifested themselves as Verstappen found himself not entirely comfortable with the balance of his car.

It was this which triggered the incident at the chicane where he ran over the cone and that ultimately set in motion the events that handed the race to McLaren’s Lando Norris – whose team had been boosted by the arrival of a major update.

From that moment on, the story of the 2024 season changed. While Red Bull did win again in Imola, Barcelona and Montreal, it never really returned to the level of dominance that it showed before the Hard Rock weekend.

McLaren’s major car revamp for that event certainly explains a lot about its own step forward, but that others were also all suddenly able to threaten Red Bull, having not been able to do so beforehand, is harder to understand.

Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38, leads Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

It was not just that McLaren improved; other did too and it seems that Red Bull went backwards and has not recovered since.

Speaking to Motorsport.com about the situation, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said there was no clear answer from his squad about why things were so different from that weekend.

“If you were sceptic, you’d say something’s changed because we went from winning races as a canter,” he said. “I was getting grief from Stefano [Domenicali] every weekend that the TV figures are dwindling because we’re set for another year of Max Verstappen and Red Bull dominance. There was a lot of pressure coming, saying: ‘Stop winning races by 20 seconds!’

“If one was a sceptic and somewhat paranoid, you say something’s changed. Because even when we’ve gone back to the configuration of the car that, for example, we had in China, we still have some of the same issues that we have experienced.

“But, in saying that, it changed for everybody, potentially. But I’ve never in a season seen a swing so exaggerated. Obviously we have to get on top of that. We have to understand it.”

What could have changed?

Questions over that weekend are not new, and various theories have popped up to try to explain it – but nothing has hit the bull’s eye yet.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, 2nd position, arrives in Parc Ferme

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

There does not appear to have been an FIA technical directive that came into play that could have influenced the competitive order.

Indeed, wild conspiracy theories that Red Bull’s drop in form was because it had had to remove an illegal asymmetrical braking system have long been discounted by the governing body – and rival teams do not think there was anything like that going on.

Red Bull itself says there is no obvious explanation about having done something to its car. Chief technical officer Adrian Newey was still with the squad at that point, and the RB20 did not feature any new upgrades in Miami that could have delivered some undesirable side effects.

There have been suggestions that the change in form could have been triggered by some minor tweak to the tyres – but on this front too, there does not appear to be any smoking gun either.

If we wanted to come up with an ultimate conspiracy, then we could imagine that one way would be for a secret tyre construction change to have happened in Miami – perhaps offering a stronger front end for teams that were struggling with the perennial problem of low-speed understeer with this current generation of cars. Making a tweak like this would mean that previously well balanced cars, like the RB20, would then have too much on the front – which would explain the change in balance characteristics to make the rear more on edge.

The only problem with such a theory about a new tyre construction is that it would be against the regulations. Article 10.8.3 of F1’s Technical Regulations states that the construction specification of tyres has to be determined no later than 1 September prior to the championship, with compounds sorted by 15 December.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20, Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

It adds: “Once determined in this way, the specification of the tyres will not be changed without the agreement of the Formula 1 Commission. Notwithstanding the above, the FIA may decide to change the specification during the championship season for safety reasons without notice or delay.”

The latter clause could have opened up a way for an immediate change to have taken place without any prior warning, but there were no safety grounds that required such a move and any shift would likely have been made public.

With a construction change therefore not feasible, there has been some attention given to potential tyre pressure increases having had an impact in swinging the picture up and down the grid.

One suggestion is that Red Bull’s advantage appears to fall away whenever the minimum pressures are raised to account for extra loading – especially at high-speed circuits.

But again, there is no clear stat that stands out on this front and points to a step change that took place from Miami based on the table below.

Race minimum starting tyre pressures for 2024 season

Races in bold won by Red Bull

Lando Norris, McLaren F1 Team, receives his Pirelli Pole Position Award from Mario Isola, Racing Manager, Pirelli Motorsport

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Pirelli’s head of F1 and car racing Mario Isola says his company is always trying to minimise the occasions it has to lift the pressures – but it is equally always fighting against increased performance from the cars.

“Every year when we homologate a new construction, the target is to have a new construction with new materials and new concepts inside in order to have a stronger tyre,” he said. “It doesn’t mean heavier, but a stronger tyre using the same pressure.

“So we try to keep the pressure as low as possible because obviously you optimise the footprint of the tyre with a lower tyre pressure. But every year teams increase the performance while we have homologated the tyre.

“Maybe we start the season with a lower pressure but then during the season we have to react to the improving performance with the tyre pressure.”

Asked if there was a chance that small changes to the pressures at various races could impact various cars in different ways, he said: “It depends on how you design the car.

“The design of the car is important and the mechanical design and the aero package of each car is affecting tyre behaviour in a slightly different way. That’s why, when we homologate a new construction, we send to the teams a lot of data. There is a list of data in the technical directive that is provided by the FIA, that is a huge amount of information that they need to design the car for the following year.”

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Aero phenomenon

While there remains no obvious answer as to what happened to Red Bull from Miami, it could be that the truth comes out later in the season as the squad unlocks answers as to the sensitivities of its RB20.

At Miami, the only tweak that Red Bull made to its car was the removal of a support for its floor edge wing that it hoped would save weight.

But maybe, as it digs deep into the data of its car and what was coming out of is wind tunnel and simulations, perhaps something else will have emerged that explains what really happened.

This likelihood seems to be increasing, as the team digs deeper into the characteristics of its car and fresh events give it opportunities to understand where weaknesses have come from.

As Horner explained: “I think there’s some inadequacies in some of the tools that we had and, as we started to push the aerodynamics of these regulations, the correlation between track and car – we’ve lost that correlation.

“I think it wasn’t really until the downforce came off the car at Monza that it really highlighted where the issues were coming from.”