Red Bull motorsport consultant Helmut Marko is adamant their recent slump in form is not linked to Adrian Newey’s decision to leave the team.
Newey confirmed yesterday he will join Aston Martin next year. He made his decision to step down at the Japanese Grand Prix in April and Red Bull announced his departure ahead of the Miami Grand Prix.The season was going well for Red Bull at that point. As they arrived in Miami, Max Verstappen had won all bar one of the first five races, and led away from pole position in Australia before being struck by a rare technical fault.
Since then life has got more difficult for the reigning constructors’ champions. McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes have all been quicker than them at times and on some occasions, such as the last race at Monza, all three were ahead of them. McLaren have emerged as Red Bull’s strongest opponent and are poised to overtake them for the lead of the constructors’ championship.
However, speaking yesterday, Newey indicated he began stepping back from the helm at Red Bull considerably earlier than this. According to Newey, his priority was developing the concept of their solution to the new regulations introduced in 2022, which the team has evolved since then.
It is already known that the extent of Newey’s involvement in Red Bull’s F1 projects has varied in recent years. His input into their cars reduced in the mid-2010s as they found themselves lumbered with uncompetitive Renault power units, but the opportunity to work with Honda from 2019 re-engaged him.
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“It’s well-known that in [2014] with the hybrid engine we were in a position where we didn’t have a very competitive PU and with no light at the end of the tunnel,” said Newey. “So that’s when I felt I needed something else to also be involved in, which became Valkyrie.
“Once we got the Honda PU then it was a very different position so then I got properly back involved on the Formula 1 side with the [RB]14, 15, 16, 16B, and then the 18 and so forth.”
The RB18 was Red Bull’s first design built to meet the revised technical regulations for 2022. Although it was initially overweight, as Red Bull lightened its design the car became increasingly competitive, so much so they won 17 rounds that season and 21 the year after.
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At this point Newey was again beginning to decouple himself from Red Bull’s design team. “It’s now a very mature team so I felt able to, once we got through the peak of the research and design of the ’22 car, the big regulation change car, to step back a little bit. The ’23 and this year’s car are very much evolutions of that first ’22 car.”
The intricate floor designs permitted since 2022 have proved exceptionally difficult to master. Newey believes there are some aspects of Red Bull’s car that its rivals still haven’t fully sussed – even after Sergio Perez’s 2023 Monaco shunt gave them a clear view of the RB19’s underside.
But whether or not Red Bull would have found themselves in the trouble they’re in before Newey stepped back is now of secondary importance to them. Their championship chances now rest on whether they can suss where they’ve gone wrong with their current car and how successfully they can address it without Newey at the helm.
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Matthijs (@matthijs)
11th September 2024, 13:38
It is not just a matter of designing the best car, but also finding solutions when things go wrong. I don’t have doubts that Red Bull is missing Newey’s inputs right now.
falken (@falken)
11th September 2024, 14:33
And their trick asymmetric breaking system too …
Ben
11th September 2024, 16:00
But they said they didn’t run that. I personally always believe RedBull as they never lie or cheat.
SteveP
11th September 2024, 19:27
The man says with his tongue so firmly in his cheek it could almost be welded there.
BTW. I note in other news that they transferred the sandwich costs to the Honda budget this time.
Doh
11th September 2024, 20:09
Lol
Nick T.
12th September 2024, 0:41
I am not an RBR fan, but the idea that somehow they’ve done more things of questionable legality than any other team is both naive and smacks of sour grapes. My favorite driver/team isn’t winning therefore, wahhh/RBR must be cheating.
And even if the had the braking trick, it obviously was a loophole rather than illegal.
SteveP
12th September 2024, 7:32
From the change in wording of the regulations, “loophole” would cover the original, and the additional text closes that by being very explicit.
I have no problem with teams exploiting loopholes, they all do, or they sit on the back of the grid and get lapped quickly.
NB. DAS wasn’t exploiting a loophole, nor was it illegal, it was just made so by pressure from the other teams who knew it would be expensive to reverse engineer from a distance.
What does concern me is that the FIA felt the need to change the regulations, mid-season, and then throw out total guff about it being just a small adjustment ready for seasons to come.
Any such change could have been notified to teams to prevent wasted development effort and added to the regs at the season end.
MacLeod (@macleod)
12th September 2024, 8:48
@Falken
Is never used by any team as the FIA got an request on that rule and it was not Red Bull who asked to clarify but some other teams who wanted to use it (starts with M)
Gubstar
11th September 2024, 13:41
Well considering Max has done nothing but moan about the cars inability to turn into the corners since the asymmetrical braking rule was tweaked, it doesn’t take skill and guise of Lieutenant Columbo to figure it out ……..
MacLeod (@macleod)
11th September 2024, 14:02
Problem with your Lt. Columbo skills Max was complaining long before any fantasy idea came along which wasn’t used yet. Also turning the car isn’t a feature of the asymmetrical braking only softer on your tyres which Red Bull doesn’t have the whole season. Ofcourse if we want to blame a team using this (tin hat on) It’s McLaren who has a great tyre wear this year… personally i would think Mercedes would use it but it seems they had enough problems already…..
Maybe you could remember last year the RB19 could take curbs and this year not which you could deduct they changed the suspension (which they did)
SteveP
12th September 2024, 7:46
Of course, you do realise that in your attempts to cast blame in another direction, you selected target teams that have not had a drop-off in performance since the mentioned regulation change.
“Personally,” I think you should spend a little less time on the Mercedes hate, it’s not good for you.
Concentrate on how well Max does. Or doesn’t, as the case may be.
MacLeod (@macleod)
12th September 2024, 8:55
@steveP I don’t try to blame a other team that why i said tin hat on as I know the system isn’t used by ANY team….
McLaren is easy on it’s tyres by design and had only in SPA a problem with the tyres.
Mercedes designed DAS that is why i said such braking system would be designed by them as they think outside the box but with problems of their design they couldn’t.
It’s not hate but a compliment and certain not blaming any team!
Nick T.
11th September 2024, 22:26
Sure. And people are eating cats and dogs in Springfield!
SteveP
12th September 2024, 7:51
Hmmm, round here, back in the 70s, we had a takeaway place that did that. True, unfortunately.
Having lowered the tone, the only way is up now.
Nick T.
12th September 2024, 0:48
BTW, did you even read the article? It doesn’t support your theory at all, Grubstar.
José Lopes da Silva
11th September 2024, 14:07
This is way more interesting than the previous article; unfortunately for everyone, it will get less views and comments.
Then you blame the media for it.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
11th September 2024, 14:18
It is I think. The first one on Newey was just a re-run of the fallout of 2021 and media coverage. It has all been covered before in exhausting detail. I am not blaming any one for this though. It’s the people who comment isn’t it?
This one is very enlightening though. It seems from this that Newey’s input, or lack of it might be less important than many thought in 2024 or even 2023. It sounds like it is mainly a case of upgrades not working. Maybe RBR have just been fortunate up until now.
Constantijn Blondel
11th September 2024, 15:26
Nice comments (boith). Wishing for a :thumbsup: button, here.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
11th September 2024, 18:02
I find this very strange, if it’s too big of a coincidence, it usually isn’t (that red bull would suddenly get upgrades wrong when newey leaves).
Nick T.
12th September 2024, 0:52
For some people, they will accept anything beside the possibility that Newey’s departure and decoupling is behind RBR’s decline.
SteveP
12th September 2024, 7:57
More than a possibility in there. Simple logic suggests that it would be stupid to pay Newey as much as they have done if his input wasn’t very valuable.
Remove very valuable input from a project and watch it spiral down until the input is replaced, or the project crashes and burns.
KatrinaM
11th September 2024, 17:19
Before any suspicion of Newey leaving RB, everyone was womdering when their performance would fall off this year because of the limited wind-tunnel time. I haven’t heard anyone address it since. Couldn’t this be at least a part of the reason?
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
11th September 2024, 18:06
No, because the past years they also had limited wind tunnel, yet their performance was fine across the season.
Doh
11th September 2024, 20:11
Even including the extra penalty for the cost cap breach they still dominated to the moon
SteveP
12th September 2024, 8:03
I said at the time, that RBR were on record as saying the main problem they had with the car (that was thrashing everyone) was that it was overweight.
Along come the FIA and “penalise” them by making them take less wind tunnel time so they can only use whatever cash they don’t spend on aero on something like working to bring the weight down…
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
11th September 2024, 18:07
Or better, it might be part of the reason, but a minor part, there’s something much bigger that happened, and to me it seems clear it’s linked to newey.
KatrinaM
11th September 2024, 19:20
Sorry, I was under the impression that because RB won the championship, they were then limited to 70% (or 63%) wind tunnel time for last year, meaning that the effect on their development would be felt in the second half of this year. I remember SkyF1 a few times near the beginning of the season specifically discussing when the drop off in performance would be. Or has there been changes to this rule by the FIA that I don’t know about?
anon
11th September 2024, 21:36
KatrinaM, the wind tunnel development restrictions have been in place since 2021, with the scaling of the wind tunnel hours was then adjusted from 2022 onwards. With regards to Red Bull, the penalty kicked in on the 26th Oct 2022 and lasted for the subsequent 12 months, which is when they would have been operating at the 63% allowance (subsequently changing to their current allocation of 70% in October 2023).
However, Horner also said in July 2023 that Red Bull had already shifted a significant portion of their wind tunnel over to development of the RB20, with most of the remaining development work on the RB19 in 2023 being circuit specific developments (such as the low downforce wings used at Monza). Although that penalty was being applied to them, the relative dominance of the RB19 meant that Red Bull could adjust their development plans for the RB20 to compensate for that reduction.
Additionally, in terms of the number of upgrades that Red Bull have introduced this season, they have still been introducing updates at a similar rate to previous years and at a rate that is not too dissimilar to their rivals. The issues instead seem to be that the upgrades they’ve introduced recently have been less effective than expected or have had unexpected adverse impacts on other parts of the car – that could potentially point towards a calibration issue instead (i.e. it’s not the amount of data they’re getting, but the quality of the data, that is causing their problems).
SteveP
12th September 2024, 8:08
There’s also the “minor” detail that Newey says he disagreed with the direction that the development was taken.
Their problems probably include the effect of ignoring the input of the guy that was responsible for the overarching design. However, there is more than just that at play, I think.
MichaelN
11th September 2024, 17:33
Newey has a talent and skill for regulation changes, so it’s not a surprise to read this ebb and flow in his involvement.
It’s also not the first time his teams have started a regulatory era strong, only for them to be overtaken within two to the years. It’s not even the second or third.
Still, for that to happen almost a third into a season is quite weird. Red Bull outright dominated those early races and it wasn’t close. It’s no wonder that some theories have started to circulate, in an attempt to explain this very unusual turn of events. Doesn’t make them true, but it’s still odd.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
11th September 2024, 18:10
And red bull usually got stronger as the season progressed, example when they were trying to catch up with mercedes, not weaker.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
11th September 2024, 18:10
And red bull usually got stronger as the season progressed, example when they were trying to catch up with mercedes, not weaker.
Nick T.
11th September 2024, 22:29
Newey’s cars were both good during regulation changes and got better as time passed with a new spec.
MichaelN
12th September 2024, 8:55
Williams didn’t keep their advantage for long, and once Benetton got the same Renault engines, Byrne’s B195 was unstoppable.
McLaren was only properly dominant at the start of 1998, after which Ferrari drew level, and then pulled ahead for many years, which eventually led to the desperate MP4/18 flop. Williams and Renault were at times better, too.
Ferrari and McLafen were right back in the title game in 2010 after Red Bull started 2009 much better. They were lucky that the Renault was superbly suited to off throttle blowing, but then in 2012 it was very close once more. Same in early 2013 until the midseason Pireli change.
2022 again started very strong, then that carried over into 2023, in no small part due to problems at Mercedes and Ferrari (and an very poor TD in 2022). Now in year three it’s very close again.
Newey is often the first to grasp new concepts, but building on an advantage is not the norm.
Koni (@mariosf1)
12th September 2024, 20:12
I would say, in the first two examples, the driver played a crucial role. Few drivers were as hungry as the Michael was at the time. Damon, Mika, David etc. while very good drivers, did not have his drive I think, to give it all and push the team to new heights every day.
Bryan (@ruz234014)
11th September 2024, 17:58
Newey is a genius. Anyone who hasn’t read “How to Build a Car” really should. And his record speaks for itself. Like many people who are the best at what they do, passion plays a big role. If his heart isn’t in it with Red Bull, it’s not too surprising that he started distancing himself.
Has there been a comparison of lap time gains from last year to this year made? I’m sure it’s out there somewhere. If Red Bull has stagnated while others have improved a lot, or there was some kind of trick brake system going on (I say show me the proof), it should be evident in a lap time comparison.
Alonslow
11th September 2024, 22:23
I’m sure this site could do a far better lap time analysis to see if the Red Bull is any slower on the race, for the comments sections that’s a lot of work, however qualy is quite an easy task let’s take a look at Lando and Max last two GP in 2023 and 2024:
Zandvoort 2023 Max P1 1:10.567 Lando P2 1:11.104
Zandvoort 2024 Max P2 1:10.029 (-0.538s) Lando P1 1:09.673 (-1.431s)
Monza 2023 Max P2 1:20.307 Lando P9 1:20.979
Monza 2024 Max Q2 Time 1:19.662 (-0.645s) Lando P1 1:19.327 (-1.652s), even Max slower Q3 time (1:20.022) was a improvment over 2023.
Overall this pattern is consistent enough to say that today’s Red Bull is quite faster than last year and still improving, it’s just the other guys took a massive step, enough to leap frog Red Bull, let’s take a look at Red Bull first win and last win of this year.
Bahrain 2023 Max P1 1:29.708 Lando P11 1:31.381
Bahrain 2024 Max P1 1:29.179 (-0.529s) Lando P7 1:29.614 (-1.767s)
Spain 2023 Max P1 1:12.272 Lando P3 1:12.792
Spain 2024 Max P2 1:11.403 (-0.869s) Lando P1 1:11.383 (-1.409s)
As you can see it changes little, the Red Bull can be 0.5 to 0.8 faster than 2023 but the Mclaren is playing on another level, 1.4 to 1.7 faster, 2023 Mclaren was quite bad at the start but easily the 2nd best car at the end yet Mclaren keeps on improving even that late end good car with ease.
Same goes for Ferrari and Mercedes I’ve not done the ‘analysis’ in a similar scale, but I’m sure it’s quite an improvement its just they were so far back last year it’s only put them sometimes better than the Red Bull.
Still have a quick peek at Spain improvements:
2023 Lewis P5 1:12.818 2024 Lewis P3 1:11.701 (-1.117s)
2023 Sainz P2 1:12.734 2024 Sainz P6 1:11.736 (-0.998s)
As you can see Mercedes also took a big jump, with Ferrari a small jump but still both of them improved more than Red Bull did.
SteveP
12th September 2024, 12:25
Maybe if you did that comparison for the whole grid?
Because at the moment it just looks like either everyone else moved forward quite a bit, or RBR stepped backward, especially with RBR finishing closer to “the rest” than the front-runner(s) in some races.
Doh
11th September 2024, 20:14
So is he saying he wasn’t responsible for the 23 car either?
Nick T.
12th September 2024, 0:54
No.
Mark (@mrcento)
11th September 2024, 20:15
I think you can take Newey (and the slump) all the way back to pre-season.
One comment stood out. He said he was concerned this car was maybe too conservative. That came off the back of comments from Horner along the lines of saying Wache was probably more important to RBR nowadays than Newey, meant as the Red Bull succession plan for Newey eventually leaving had seen Pierre Wache effectively take over the design lead and chose against Neweys wishes.
Now knowing what we know and the timing of him stepping back, with hindsight, you can probably take it as ‘This is Pierre Wache’s decision, this path has gone about as far as it can, he can deal with it when the others start to catch us and he’s got to chase the dirty downforce the car isn’t capable of consistently producing, i’m not putting my name to it if it goes as i expect’.
I don’t think Neweys departure is the issue right now, but his departure was rooted in the issue we’re seeing before it became apparent.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th September 2024, 3:33
Mmm, this is also a possibility, which would mean it’s the other way around: mistakes were made in developing the car and the consequence was newey leaving, rather than the opposite like some of us thought.
roadrunner (@roadrunner)
11th September 2024, 21:29
As usual there’s probably more than one factor in Redbulls sudden slump. But you can’t take a man of Neweys quality out of the equation. No matter how low the extent of his involvement in the last few car’s development might have had I strongly believe he was still giving valuable input and it’s him who had the last word. It’s just too much of a coincidence that they’re struggling so much to get back on track. It’s a bit reminiscing of what happened to Williams in 1997 (and to a lesser extent to McLaren in 2006) when he stepped back from work.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th September 2024, 3:36
Yes, it’s hard to not be suspicious when a car gets so much worse just as newey leaves.
Williams went from having the best car to being mediocre in a single year, mclaren had a fragile rocketship of a car and turned it around, not fast enough to compete but more reliable, and now red bull went from a rocketship to a contender for the spoils left by the winners.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
12th September 2024, 3:38
If this form continues, I could call the red bull mediocre too in the 2nd half of the season.
Tristan
11th September 2024, 22:40
This article reads way too much into these quotes and not enough at what we actually saw at the time.
If Newey was stepping back would he have been at the car launch and on the pit wall? Would he have been attending engineering meetings up until he announced he was leaving?
Newey was active at Red Bull as ever up until his departure. There can be no doubt that his input is being missed as their performance wanes.
SteveP
12th September 2024, 8:17
It’s called professionalism.
Kringle
12th September 2024, 10:43
Memories are short here, a slowing car is not the reason he would leave.
Clearly the death of Didi is the key stone in this RBR bridge, and Horney Hornergate was the lorry that drove into it.
SteveP
12th September 2024, 12:30
Not what anyone is saying, you have a cause and effect switch around.
What people are saying is that Newey leaving is the cause of the slowing.
It’s one reason. Like an onion, this has many layers.