Red Bull driver Max Verstappen reveals the areas for improvement in their car after a massively dominating F1 season.
Despite winning 21 of the 22 races in the 2023 season, Red Bull still has room for improvement in Max Verstappen's mind. The team lost the only race in Singapore, which the Dutchman believes reflects where the car's weakness lay. According to him, the team lost on that circuit and struggled during the F1 Las Vegas GP.
"It’s difficult to tell, but of course, we are also working on our car to try and make it better," PlanetF1 quoted him. "I think we know our weaknesses as well in the car, and that’s what we’ll try to work on… Look at our race weekend in Singapore. In general, on street circuits, I think we are struggling a bit more – like in Vegas also."
Assessing the battle that Charles Leclerc shared with the Red Bull of Sergio Perez during the Las Vegas GP made it apparent that the latter was struggling with pace on the circuit. Further, Ferrari, too, had made quite some improvement. This makes it clear that while the RB19 was dominant all over the grid, street circuits turned out to be its Achilles' Heel.
"Low-speed is definitely not our strongest point in the car. Bumps, kerbs as well. so that’s definitely an area where we can improve," the Dutchman said.
Max Verstappen assesses the challenge for the 2024 F1 season after McLaren's strong growth
McLaren has been struggling with pace for the past couple of seasons and the start to their 2023 season did not seem very promising. Later in the season, however, the team had a very positive trajectory in R&D. Both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri could be seen within the top five consistently during most of the races.
Max Verstappen, who had nothing to worry about in the previous season, assesses that McLaren might come out strong in the 2024 F1 season given their strong development. F1 quoted him saying,
"The one I think that was most impressive behind us from where they started to where they ended was definitely McLaren. It looks like they might be very strong next year."
While McLaren will be hoping to carry forward with the momentum of the 2023 season, Red Bull has reportedly started to think about their 2025 car as revealed by their Head of Performance Engineer.
It's clear that the Austrian team has a firm grip on the performance, but they could face some challenges from their competitors in the 2024 F1 season as Max Verstappen looks forward to increasing his championship tally to four.