Red Bull can make a big leap without these problems

Max Verstappen has won two of the last three races, but he is right in his statement after the Monaco qualifying: Under pressure from the approaching competition, a significant weakness at Red Bull was exposed. The RB20 cannot handle kerbs and bumps. But that is also interesting, perhaps good news. If the problems can be solved.

Especially in the dry, Canada only confirmed what the team had already suspected the previous weekend. “Even here in the race we are struggling with the kerbs and the bumps,” confirmed Verstappen after his victory. He only came with a small lead after he had already missed pole on Saturday.

At the Monaco weekend, Verstappen made it clear that the team needed to work on the problem and then, in the medium term, provide updates to solve it. Basically, the problem seems to center around the fact that the RB20 needs very stiff suspension setups to perform well aerodynamically in the optimal window.

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“Of course you push the aerodynamic platform,” says team boss Christian Horner. “But you want to drive the car over the kerbs.” On tracks like Canada, a lot of lap time is found on the kerbs. The best example of this is the last chicane. A car that can handle the kerbs there can gain a lot of time.

Here Horner is optimistic after Canada: “Even with the stiffness of the car, rattling over that last chicane – if you look at everything, we were very competitive there. So despite the lack of comfort we were still fast enough.” However, the car’s setup is currently really uncomfortable for the drivers to push it to the limit.

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Verstappen suspects that this is also the reason for Sergio Perez’s problems. After all, his poor form coincides perfectly with the races that highlighted the RB20’s problems. If it is easier to drive, then for Verstappen that is the answer to his worries about the constructors’ championship: “Then I am sure that we will have both cars at the front again, like at the start of the season.”

Verstappen & Horner hope for big time gain

With regard to the entire World Championship and the immediate future, Red Bull is relaxed about the situation. They are now heading to Barcelona, ​​where kerbs do not play a major role in lap times. But the team is looking beyond that, towards races like Singapore. “We know it is a weakness and we are working hard to solve it,” says Verstappen. “I really believe it is a major performance limitation for us at the moment.”

Pole setter George Russell leads after the start ahead of Max Verstappen in the Red Bull
Verstappen struggled with Mercedes in Canada, Photo: Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool

“We can definitely make a pretty big jump with the car if we get it under control,” Verstappen is sure. Horner agrees: “There is real power buried here. If we work that out, then we’ll see, that will free up lap time.”

And Verstappen is confident: “I really think we can solve it without affecting any other part of the car.” But how good are the chances of a successful update? Horner has no time for comments from the Mercedes camp that the last Red Bull upgrade was more of a downgrade: “Even with our downgrade, we beat their upgrade!”

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