Red Bull Racing team principal Laurent Mekies: “Max Verstappen is right about that”

Red Bull Racing currently has a complicated task on its to-do list: Max Verstappen has repeatedly mentioned that his car is wearing out. Normally, it is tyres that wear out or degrade during a race or a stint. However, the Dutchman used the analogy of the car itself deteriorating. The problem occurs mainly on the rear axle. What is the nature of this mysterious problem, which has been going on for some time but which appears to be a major challenge to resolve?

Red Bull Racing team principal Laurent Mekies said after the Madrid race, in which his protégé Max Verstappen still managed a remarkable second place: “I don’t think we’ll be explaining what this is all about or how we’re going to fix the problem.” So the details are to remain internal and not be made public. This is standard practice in Formula 1.

Mekies: “I think Max is right that the car’s performance drops over the course of a session and a race. He’s right when he says this isn’t a new problem. But we’re not just going to sit on it. We’ve tried to tackle the problem in various ways. Of course, I consider it a complex problem; otherwise, we would have got to the bottom of it long ago.”

It’ll be an issue next year too!

The French engineer said: “Everyone is dealing with it very constructively and trying to make progress step by step to finally get to the bottom of the problem.” And regarding the Spanish Grand Prix weekend, he said: “In that respect, we were able to take some positive steps this weekend. It will never be the full picture, but we have certainly made progress in our understanding, albeit with some difficulty. We haven’t yet implemented all the solutions in the car, but I’m confident we’re on the right track. It won’t be a quick process, so it’s something that will probably keep us busy throughout the whole of next year.’ Identifying fundamental problems in the car, diagnosing them correctly and finally resolving them can take a long time in Formula 1 (just look at Mercedes in 2022 with the infamous porpoising). This is partly due to the complexity of the regulations, but also to development constraints, such as the cost cap.

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