Adrian Newey has conceded that Red Bull are struggling with their car development despite their strong start to the season.
That’s a critical admission considering that Max Verstappen is still considering his future with the side.
Regulation changes come into force in 2026, including major changes to engine and chassis rules, and that could have a significant effect on the grid.
However, there are two seasons until that point and Newey – Red Bull’s chief designer – admitted he is finding it hard to eek out much more performance from their current RB20 model while looking forward to the changes.
‘From a design point of view, I enjoy regulation changes, providing those regulation changes give a reasonable amount of freedom.
Adrian Newey has admitted that Red Bull are ‘struggling’ to develop their RB20 car further
Red Bull are top of the Constructors’ Championship while their drivers lead the individual table
‘I must admit, when I first saw these current regulations that I was quite depressed by them, they looked extremely prescriptive.
‘Luckily, there was a bit of a relaxation towards the end. But actually, once we got into the detail, combined with that relaxation, there’s been a reasonable amount of freedom within them – as you saw particularly early in 2022, there were lots of different solutions.
‘They’re starting to converge now, but we’re now into that sort of, “Okay, we’ve done some visual changes for this year’s car, but the principles are the same,” so the differences are reducing internally.
‘In our case, we’re struggling to find the gains. In terms of aero gains in percent per month, [we] are flattening without doubt.’
If Red Bull are struggling behind the scenes, they show no signs of that on the track.
Max Verstappen has won three of the four races so far and sits top of the standings, with team-mate Sergio Perez second in the table.
The only race he didn’t win was in Australia, where a mechanical failure caused him to drop out.
Red Bull are 21 points ahead of closest rivals Ferrari in the Constructors’ Championship.
Max Verstappen’s future is still up for question with Mercedes having a free seat for 2025
Mail Sport believes that Verstappen wants to stay at Red Bull, though his father, Jos, reportedly told friends that he would leave the team if he has to after Christian Horner’s ‘sexting’ scandal.
The Red Bull chief – who earns £8million a year – was the subject of an internal investigation after accusations of ‘coercive behaviour’ towards a female colleague were made against him, before he was cleared.
However, messages that were alleged to be between Horner and his accuser were then leaked via anonymous email, adding further furore to the whole situation. The bombshell email – which was sent to leading F1 figures – contained 79 documents, including hundreds of messages, many of them of a sexual nature.
Lewis Hamilton is leaving Mercedes for Ferrari for the 2025 season and the Silver Arrows could be a destination if Verstappen decided to leave.
