Were Red Bull's 2024 upgrades really a downgrade?

So it's come to this. Red Bull fails to win two of the past four races and we, so starved and desperate for the faintest whiff of a competitive order, assume that something's gone terribly wrong somewhere in Milton Keynes. It's been hard to get used to the idea that a handful of teams have made genuine progress so far this year, although the appearances of Ferrari, McLaren, and Mercedes at the front have nonetheless been welcome.

Last season, it would have felt very weird to say that after a Max Verstappen victory, such was the Dutchman's complete and utter irrepressibility in 2023. His wins came with an intoxicating air of inevitability, even on the days where his car was slightly less dominant over the chasing pack. Spare a thought for this writer's opposite number Alex Kalinauckas, who reported on races which only Verstappen won last season...

In the present, the obvious suggestion to explain this year's greater competitiveness has lain in the improvements that the other 'Big Four' teams have made, the primary side of the coin that Alex will explore this week in his column. The other side concerns Red Bull's own progress this year, or comparative lack thereof versus the other teams, as it starts its shift into the realm of diminishing returns.

PLUS: Bad luck or misjudgement: did Norris and McLaren throw away Canadian GP victory?

For the past few seasons, Red Bull's design office has been the epicentre of innovation, particularly when it came to its preparation for the ground-effect regulations in 2022. We've heard all of this before: Adrian Newey had experience of the initial ground-effect cars when working under the late Harvey Postlethwaite at Fittipaldi, knew what made them tick, and had a hand in developing a suspension package that would ensure that Red Bull's RB18 could run low to the ground without suffering the porpoising that plagued many of the other traditional front-runners. What held it back initially was weight and, once the chassis had been put on a crash diet, reeled off 10 of the 11 victories possible in the second half of 2022.

Then came its crushing dominance of 2023, where only Carlos Sainz's Singapore masterclass interrupted the Red Bull team's attempt to do what McLaren could not in 1988 and win every single race. It was in the South East Asian city-state where an Achilles' heel was exposed; kerb-riding and short-radius corners posed a challenge that Red Bull could not really respond to at the Marina Bay circuit. Perhaps Red Bull tried to gloss over it and cited set-up issues, but scratching underneath the surface of Verstappen's earlier win at Monaco suggested that there was a genuinely exploitable weakness. Thing is, nobody was really able to make the most of it the principality last year, and Aston Martin did not seem ready to capitalise having been caught on the hop by its own surprising level of competitiveness at the start of '23.

Now? Different story. Red Bull's mask of infallibility slipped in Melbourne; although Verstappen retired with a brake issue, it's likely that Ferrari and Sainz would have beat him in a tete-a-tete battle Down Under. McLaren could have won at Imola, Leclerc took victory in Monaco, and different circumstances and conditions might have led to either Norris or George Russell taking victory in Montreal.

"The last few races have been quite difficult - but not only just difficult, too many problems as well, throughout the whole weekend," Verstappen explained post-victory in Canada. "So we need to have a cleaner weekend. Even in the race now, we're struggling a lot with the kerbing and the bumps. So we definitely have an area we can work on and definitely improve the car by quite a big margin if we get that under control."

Verstappen made his way past Norris on lap 48 and never rescinded the lead.

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Red Bull has identified the same weakness that has been prevalent over the past season or two, but there have also been suggestions that its Imola updates have not hit the mark. A new floor and front wing were introduced at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, but the team suffered set-up issues over the weekend that were only really alleviated in the gap between FP3 and qualifying.

Sebastien Buemi's starring turn in the simulator over that weekend helped to offer some direction, but there has been a tacit admission that its sim set-up does not accurately correlate with the real world when it comes to the world of dealing with bumps and kerbs.

Mercedes technical chief James Allison contended that Red Bull's upgrades had not only failed to deliver the expected gains, but had been a "downgrade" for the Austrian-registered team.

“I guess as soon as there's a decent range of cornering speeds, they'll be useful again, but it does look as if their upgrade was a downgrade,” the Briton mused. "Fingers crossed that would really mess them up! That makes life hard because the moment you stop trusting your tools you have to backtrack and you lose loads of time and time is your biggest friend, losing it your worst enemy is total. Everyone always loves other people's misery at this stage."

"It does look as if their upgrade was a downgrade. Fingers crossed that would really mess them up!" James Allison

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner hit back at Allison's jibe post-race in Montreal, suggesting that "even with our downgrade, we managed to beat their upgrade", but it remains apparent that Red Bull still has work to do in addressing its ride.

Here's the thing about ground-effect aerodynamics: the Venturi tunnels require a very stable suspension geometry to work properly. Running the suspension too softly means that the floor is too often scraping across the ground as the load builds, which can choke the underbody and create fluctuations in mass flow rate underneath. If the damping is not right, you'll get something approaching a sine wave in terms of downforce built as the sprung mass bounces up and down.

On the flipside, running it without any kind of give does tend to offer that stability and keeps the underbody at a consistent height to ensure the downforce output is predictable. But when it comes to larger bumps or striking kerbs around a circuit, the suspension has little compliance to ride them adequately. Something akin to a coupling effect with the unsprung mass (ie. the tyres and wheel hubs) occurs, which unloads the tyre and creates a loss of grip. In low-speed, short-radius corners, Red Bull thus suffers from more instability, and thus pays the price in terms of overall lap time.

Despite his victory, Verstappen still found troubles with the Red Bull's capabilities around the Montreal circuit.

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

That correlates with Verstappen's in-race suggestion that the suspension felt like it was 'locking' - not in the literal sense, but that the sprung mass felt that it was shadowing the ride of the wheels over the kerbs. In the end, he decided to avoid them completely to avoid the headache-inducing impacts he was facing over them.

Fixing that is a little more involved than using softer springs, because that'll affect Red Bull's potency in the high-speed corners - its greatest strength. And compromise will rarely do for such an ultra-competitive outfit; a designer will often want to have their cake and eat it too.

Barcelona, now without the clumsy final sector, is set to play into Red Bull's hands. The plethora of medium-to-high speed corners - Turn 3, Turn 9, and the final two turns - will suit the RB20's sensibilities and make it very hard for the chasing pack to keep up thanks to its aero-forward layout. It all depends on the progress that the other front-runners have made, and whether more upgrades are forthcoming for the upcoming triple-header.

Plus: Canadian Grand Prix Driver Ratings 2024

It's not easy to square the circle with the idea that Red Bull's upgrades have been a complete downgrade, as per Allison's assertions; it's just likely that the team has not made the progress that the other teams have, on a suite of circuits that punish poorer levels of ride and minimises lateral motion through and exiting the corners.

“We know there are circuits later in the year like Singapore where it [ride issues] could be a factor. But we really expect Ferrari, McLaren - and Mercedes who came into that window this weekend - to be competitive at every circuit," Horner said, as Red Bull believes that it can plug its main weakness without sapping its RB20 of its existing strengths.

That said, there's also a sense that whatever upgrades Red Bull brings to the track next, it needs to make greater strides with them to keep pace with the cars behind it. Otherwise, it'll really look as though the team has run out of steam with its current philosophy...

Will Verstappen regain dominance in Barcelona, or will his rivals keep pace?

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images