Red Bull introduces a radical floor at the F1 Azerbaijan GP to combat the car's balance issues

Red Bull will run a radical new floor at the upcoming Azerbaijan GP this weekend to combat its balance issues in the RB20. After dominantly starting the 2024 season, the world champions have slipped back into the clutches of their rivals McLaren, Ferrari, and Mercedes and have been struggling to find podium finishes.

The Austrian team has failed to win any race since the Spanish GP and has been facing regular balance and setup issues ever since the Miami GP. Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez have been quite vocal in their complaints regarding the RB20's issues in the past couple of months.

As per RacingNews365, Red Bull will introduce a new floor body in Baku this weekend with the elements from the previous three upgrades. According to FIA's brief on the team's upgrades list, the Milton-Keynes outfit has "subtly revised by locally raising or lowering the surfaces to improve the pressure gradients along the floor to improve the flow locally and downstream in all conditions."

The floor body is the only update that Red Bull has planned to bring to the Azerbaijan GP. Moreover, they have been pushing for a major upgrade package for the United States GP in Austin, Texas next month. The team will hope that the new floor solves the problems faced by the drivers in the recent races and serves as a component to limit the damage in the next two races.

Red Bull driver gives his take on the new floor to the RB20

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen stated that as a team, they had a 'lot of work to do' and weren't expecting big changes to results with the new floor given the short gap between Monza and Baku.

Speaking with RacingNews365, the three-time world champion said:

"We still have a lot of work to do. I do think that, in a way, Monza was positive to learn more about the car, and now it just takes time to make the car better and to understand our weaknesses. I think we did."

"Now it's about trying to find solutions for it. I also noted that it's not coming within one or two weeks from when you understand your problems. But I hope that from now onwards we can just look ahead and try to be better, and not like at Monza," he added.

Speaking about his chances of a better result in Baku, Verstappen was hesitant and claimed:

"If we perform like at Monza, it's not realistic. We definitely need to be better than what we have been delivering lately."

The Red Bull driver leads his title rival Lando Norris by 62 points in the standings with eight races and three Sprints remaining in the season.