Red Bull tech chief fears they could 'be in trouble' with rivals in heated 2024 F1 title fight

Verstappen talking to Perez during the Belgian GP weekend — Photo: © LAT Images

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EXCLUSIVE: Red Bull tech chief fears they could 'be in trouble' with rivals in heated 2024 title fight

Red Bull have so far won every race in dominant 2023 campaign

By Jan Bolscher.

Tuesday 12 September 2023 20:57

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Red Bull's technical director Pierre Waché expects that the battle for the Formula 1 world title in 2024 will be closer than the current campaign.

According to Waché, Red Bull's domination this year is not so much due to the performance of the RB19, but down to underachievement of rivals.

Red Bull are enjoying an extremely dominant 2023. The Milton Keynes outfit have won all 14 races this year and are well on their way to sealing the constructors' championship relatively early in the season.

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Sitting on 583 points they boast a huge lead over second place Mercedes who trail by 310 points. This has led to regular talk in recent weeks about the dominance of the team whose drivers consist of world champion Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez.

Some fear that the sport may become boring or predictable, while others believe that it is up to the other teams to close the gap.

Ferrari (left) and Mercedes (right) have failed to lead a credible title challenge to Red Bull

Trouble could be ahead for Red Bull

Speaking in an exclusive interview with GPFans, Waché feared that if other teams start to maximise their potential, the advantage that Red Bull currently have over their rivals could be severely cut.

"I think so," he said. "If you see what McLaren and Williams have achieved in terms of performance... If Mercedes and Ferrari do the same, we are in trouble.

"Then the fight will clearly not be in our favor. We still have to push as much as possible to make it happen, to make sure we are there. The performance is much closer than at the end of last season."

Not up to FIA to end domination

Due to Red Bull's dominance there have been outside calls for the FIA to intervene to try and level the playing field, but Waché believes it's a simple matter of rivals having to play 'catch up'.

"The performance is much closer together than at the end of last season," he said.

"When I see what some teams have done, Aston Martin, McLaren... I think some people have not achieved what they should have achieved. This dominance is not because of us, but because others have not achieved the performance they should have achieved."

There have been calls to the FIA to intervene with Red Bull's domination

Cost-cap fallout

Red Bull are already at a disadvantage to their rivals following last season's cost cap breaches and the punishments from that.

One of those punishments was being able to spend less time in the wind tunnel over the course of 12 months and Waché explained how Red Bull's ability to develop a 2024 challenger has already been hindered.

“Because it [the penalty] lasts until October, it absolutely reduces our capacity to develop the car for next year,” he continued.

"It reduces our research capacity, but fortunately we started the season quite well. The punishment does not slow us down, but only reduces our development capacity. You also see that we have fewer updates than others because we have less research capacity. Next year we have therefore potentially less research than others. That is a risk."