Red Bull technical director and Adrian Newey's successor, Pierre Wache, has conceded that the current car concept might have reached its ceiling, even though there might be areas where the car could get better.
The Austrian team started the 2024 season on such a strong foundation that not many expected them to face any issues as the season progressed. The 2023 season saw the team win all but one race.
When Red Bull launched their new car this season, it looked like a gridbeater. The start of the season was as expected, as Max Verstappen won in a dominant fashion. Until Miami, when McLaren introduced its major upgrade package, no team came close to the Austrian team. After the upgrades, though, things have changed.
Red Bull have been caught, and McLaren appear to have the overall edge. There have been question marks raised by Max Verstappen himself, as the Dutch driver has questioned the efficacy of the upgrades..
In a conversation with Motorsport.com, Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache admitted that that the car concept might have hit the ceiling. He did, however, add that it doesn't mean the car cannot be made quicker as he explained:
"Our ceiling (with one specific concept) maybe, but it doesn’t mean that it is the overall ceiling. In this business, you take ideas from the others as well.
"During the past two years, people took our ideas, but, fundamentally, you need the others to find some other stuff as well to make a step. I think that is starting to happen now, and that gives you a different ceiling."
Wache, though, revealed something interesting when he said that Red Bull expected the competition to catch up much earlier than it has. Citing the start of the 2022 F1 season, he said:
"I think we expected the opposition to come (catch us) earlier, to be honest with you.
"When we started the 2022 season, we didn’t have the quickest car - Ferrari had the quickest car in the beginning of 2022. We expected a massive competition in 2023, but that didn’t happen."
Red Bull not happy with performance gains from RB20
When Red Bull first introduced RB20, it looked radically different from its predecessor.
Many felt that the challenger was going to yield a season similar to what the team had in 2023. However, according to Wache, the RB20 hasn't yielded the kind of gains the team expected. He said:
"I would say not really. We improved compared to last year, without doubt, but we didn’t deliver what we expected in some areas. Especially in the high-speed corners, we expected a little bit more than what we have."
Delving deeper into why it might have happened, Wache feels that the reduced development time coupled with Red Bull using an older wind tunnel could have resulted in the overall drop-off from expectations. He said:
"Without thinking about the competitiveness of the car, so just based on our own references, we expected a little bit more with our tools. I think some aspects can be linked to the correlation."
He added:
"We are using quite an old wind tunnel, and it can also be linked to the reduced capacity due to our position in the championship (ATR) and maybe also the fact that this is the third year with this type of regulation."
It will be interesting to see how the second half of the season goes for the team. Red Bull will hope to take back the initiative from its rivals and start making some progress with the car.