Max Verstappen’s ‘wrong direction’ verdict in ‘quite drastic’ change of Red Bull fortune

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Changing the concept of the RB20 to incorporate ideas previously discarded by Mercedes in the ground-effect aerodynamic era, Max Verstappen says Red Bull took the “wrong direction” with the car.

Having won all bar one race in 2023, Red Bull surprised their rivals when they unveiled the RB20 ahead of pre-season testing, revealing a car that was very different to last year’s record-breaking RB19.

Max Verstappen admits ‘wrong direction’ and ‘unfortunate decisions’

However, the new car not only appeared very different to its predecessor, it also featured design concepts inspired by attempts made – but discarded – in the last two years by Mercedes.

Red Bull seemed to have made it work with Verstappen racing to seven wins in the first ten races. Not on a par with last year’s dominance, but still enough to have pundits predicting a third successive double for the team.

Spain though, was the last time Verstappen or Red Bull won a Grand Prix.

While Red Bull got a little lost in their development of the RB20, McLaren surged ahead with their spot-on upgrades and in Azerbaijan finally claimed the lead in the Constructors’ Championship, which they have grown to 41 points.

“Let’s say we took the wrong direction with the car,” Verstappen told Sky Italia. “Now we are trying to correct it but it takes time, you can’t just flip a switch and fix everything.

“We are working on it, then we also had bad luck in some episodes in the last races, some unfortunate decisions that compromised the final result. But I know we can do better.

“Obviously I don’t expect it to go like last year, where we dominated the whole season, but I feel confident that we can get back to fighting for the win very soon.”

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Having won 19 races last season, and often by double digit margins, this year he’s often been pushed to the line with three wins coming with a winning margin of less than four seconds. At Imola, his gap to Lando Norris was a mere 0.7s.

It has created moments of frustration, most notably at the Hungarian Grand Prix when Verstappen raged at his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase on his way to a distant fifth place.

He concedes the tables have turned on Red Bull, and sharply.

“Obviously it started out pretty well, it was just a continuation of last year,” he said. “But I always prepare myself not to have excessive expectations.

“The start was good, but I never thought it would be the same as last year. I knew things would change sooner or later and they did it quite drastically.

“It’s time to keep calm and work together with the team to do a better job.”

Verstappen leads the Drivers’ standings by 52 points ahead of Norris, while Red Bull are second in the Constructors’ Championship.

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