Helmut Marko reveals clear Max Verstappen Red Bull RB20 request with F1 title at risk

Will Max Verstappen hold on to secure a fourth straight title in F1 2024?

Max Verstappen does not want more downforce added to the Red Bull RB20 during the F1 2024 season if it makes the car difficult to drive.

That’s according to Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko, who has admitted the team “have to rebuild” after their mid-season slump continued at the Italian Grand Prix.

Max Verstappen wants driveability, not downforce, from Red Bull RB20

Having produced the most successful season in history in 2023, winning all but one race as Verstappen eased to a third consecutive World Championship, Red Bull had been expected to dominate once again in F1 2024.

Yet despite starting the season with four wins from the first five races, Red Bull have increasingly struggled in the face of a renewed threat from the likes of McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari.

Verstappen remains without a victory since the Spanish Grand Prix on June 23, a six-race winless streak his longest drought since 2020, with the Dutchman’s lead over Lando Norris reduced to 62 points with eight races remaining.

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Red Bull, meanwhile, sit just eight points ahead of McLaren and could lose the lead of the Constructors’ Championship for the first time since May 2022 at next weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku.

Verstappen has aired concerns that his title is in jeopardy, telling media including PlanetF1.com at Monza that winning both Championships is “not realistic” for Red Bull on current form.

Referring to the RB20 as a “monster”, Verstappen went on to declare that Red Bull must “turn the car upside down” after making it “undriveable” in the space of just six months.

Since F1’s ground-effect regulations were introduced in 2022, teams have faced the challenge of adding the downforce to the car while keeping it in a user-friendly window, with a trade-off to be found between improving the car’s overall performance and retaining driveability.

Writing in his post-race Speedweek column, Marko revealed that Verstappen has made clear his preference to Red Bull’s engineers over the Italian GP weekend, insisting he would rather have a more compliant car with less downforce.

Marko said: “The main question now is: how do we go about rediscovering the good car balance from the first part of the season?

“Max Verstappen said in Monza that he doesn’t need 20 points more downforce if it makes the car undriveable, so we have to rebuild and hopefully find the point at which the car was in balance.

“If we can do that, then the behaviour of the car will become predictable again, the drivers will gain fresh confidence and will be able to contribute in an ideal way again.

“Of course, this is a difficult task because we’ve put a lot of new parts on the car since then.

“Put simply, we have to find out where we went wrong technically.”

Marko’s comments come after Swiss-German publication Blick claimed Red Bull have all but conceded the Constructors’ title to McLaren, with the team’s focus on securing a fourth consecutive World Championship for Verstappen.

A report quotes a unnamed member of Red Bull’s senior management commenting before the race at Monza: “We can forget about this championship.

“All that counts now is Max’s fourth title.”

Marko appeared to echo that view, telling Austria’s OE24 that the Drivers’ Championship is “the priority” for Red Bull.

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