Despair ahead of Baku

Verstappen frustrated: “Doesn’t get me anywhere!”

Max Verstappen (left) and Helmut Marko are currently at a loss.

(Bild: AFP/APA/Andrej ISAKOVIC)

The world champion team Red Bull has fallen off the road to success and is trying hard to turn the wheel in the two World Championship title fights. After six Grands Prix without a win, a mixture of hope, uncertainty and despair is spreading.

The development weighs all the more heavily, especially as those responsible for the McLaren team have simultaneously managed to work their way up from outsider to number 1 in Formula 1 according to the latest results.

At the root of Red Bull's predicament is the car and its handling. Improvements to the RB20 before the Grands Prix in Japan, Emilia Romagna, Spain and the Netherlands have come to nothing. "We have created a car that reacts extremely sensitively to the smallest changes," said motorsport consultant Helmut Marko.

Not only Newey has left the team
The Styrian doesn't need to think about whether the resigned chief designer Adrian Newey could have prevented the crash. "He was no longer involved in all the details of vehicle development back in the spring." The regression is striking at a time when, in addition to Newey, key pillars of the success structure have left or will leave the team in the shape of Dan Fallows, Rob Marshall and Jonathan Wheatley.

Adrian Newey

(Bild: GEPA/GEPA pictures)

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

Red Bull in a vicious circle
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 fallen into. The difficulty is that fixing one problem in other areas would lead to new problems.

Christian Horner

(Bild: AFP/CHRISTIAN BRUNA)

There is also the question of where to apply the lever on the car. Finding the point at which development work went in the wrong direction is difficult. Marko sees deconstruction as a solution. "Then we hope to find the point at which the car was in balance. If we can do that, the car's behavior will also become predictable again."

Verstappen doesn't know anything like that
Time is also pressing to keep Verstappen happy and - in the longer 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 standings but also in the drivers' standings in great danger. In the constructors' championship, McLaren has closed the gap to eight points, and in the drivers' championship, McLaren's Lando Norris has 62 points. Eight races and three sprints are still to come.

The increased breadth at the top of the Formula 1 hierarchy in recent 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 in a position to finish ahead of Verstappen. He has recently called his target damage limitation. The realization that he is not capable of winning is naturally very painful for someone like him. "The whole thing doesn't help me. I want to win races again," he said.