Max Verstappen stresses on kerb riding and bumpy tracks causing problems to Red Bull, as he and Christian Horner wants to go in-depth of the issues.
Red Bull has a problem. It was there perhaps but was masked by their raw pace and its F1 rivals not stepping up. But the 2024 season has seen the likes of Ferrari and McLaren step up, piling the pressure on the champions in forcing them to make a mistake.
The duo have three wins already when they all struggled to secure only one win in all of 2023. The heat is certainly on Red Bull and they feel it too trying to improve their car. In fact, the first step is identifying the core issue which is linked to kerb riding and bumps.
“First we need to understand what it is, we don’t now a the moment so this is something that we have to find first,” said Verstappen when asked about the current car and how they can prepare for 2025 as well. “We have to wait and see for Canadia, they have new surface as well I think, that might also give us some surprises.
“But it is probably also not going to be our strongest weekend because of that but probably a little bit better than Monaco.” At the moment, Verstappen is not thinking too much about the championship. He is taking things as they are but expects the year to be a roller coaster ride with many ups and downs.
“It was never going to be like last year, to have a season like that is quite rare,” said Verstappen. “I always knew that this year was going to be a little bit different but also I don’t really think about championship positions or whatever with so many races left. Some races are a bit better for us and some are a bit worse for us.
“At the end of the day it all works out. The cars are much closer, some cars work better on street circuits and some work better in fast corners rather than low speed corners. It will swing a bit. As I said, we need to understand our problems. I don’t even want to think about that [constructors’] yet.
“We still have a great car but we know we have limitation and that is priority number one,” summed up Verstappen, who highlighted where Red Bull might struggle and how he has checked out his emotions having lived through the initial phase with no titles.
“Any track that is bumpy or has kerbs, or you have to ride a lot of kerbs, so the street circuits will probably be a little bit tricky but hopefully by then we have a little bit of understanding of what is going on,” said Verstappen. “[The old Max would have been frustrated], yes, but four or five years ago we didn’t have a championship-winning car.
“I’ve been in this quite a long time, so probably also that, it gives you less emotions.” Team boss Horner mostly concurred with Verstappen about identifying the core issue. The title picture could be tight, but he insists there is lot of time left. He states that the problem on street circuits has been there which they are trying to address.
“There’s a long way to go so we’ve never taken anything for granted in the championship,” said Horner. “To understand what the issues were with the ride and the kerbs we got a huge amount of data now to go away and look at and look to address for the upcoming races. We saw it in Singapore last year as well.
“So we’ve had another example of that. We know it’s an area of the car we need to work on. We got some lessons to take out of Monaco and some issues that we need to address with a car obviously,” summed up Horner, who when asked specifically about the kerbs, he noted on it being a continuous process to understand parts of the car.
He hinted on the team’s updates if that has been a problem since Visa Cash App RB uses last year’s suspension from Red Bull which hasn’t seen such issues so far. “It’s a continual process,” said Horner. “Of course you’re into the law of diminishing returns. And of course your focus changes depending on what your problems are.
“So, quite a lot of focus will now happen, or will now take part on, okay, why have we had these ride issues? Why is the car struggling on the kerbs? The VCARB car is running with our suspension from last year. It didn’t seem to have the same issues. We need to understand if it’s something that we’ve introduced.
“Looking at Canada, it is a track that we’ve performed well out previously. They’ve resurfaced the whole circuit again. So let’s see. But Ferrari, McLaren are quick. It was always going to happen that there was going to be convergence. Of course, this has been a tough weekend, but we’re still leading both championships.
“We’ll look to take the lessons out of Monaco and apply to the next one. As I said, it is understanding what the issue is. Once we’ve done that, then you can look at what the relevant fix is,” summed up Horner.
Here’s Max Verstappen, Christian Horner on Monaco GP struggles
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