F1 News: Adrian Newey admits HUGE Red Bull future risk

adrian newey at Red Bull — Photo: © IMAGO

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Newey admits HUGE risk on Red Bull future

Adrian Newey reveals fork in the road for Red Bull

Dan Ripley Global Editor

Professional F1 journalist and analyst

Saturday 16 March 2024 20:55

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Adrian Newey has admitted that Red Bull have taken a big gamble in their approach to the 2024 season.

Heading into the new campaign, the team were heavy favourites to dominate once again having won the last three world championships with Max Verstappen as well as back-to-back constructors' titles.

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Red Bull have so far played up to their tag, dominating the first two races of the year in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia with one-two finishes of Verstappen comfortably leading team-mate Sergio Perez.

However, design guru Adrian Newey has revealed the team took a huge risk in terms of which way to develop the RB20 heading into the year.

The Red Bull RB20 has dominated F1 so far

Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen have been unstoppable

Newey insists RB20 developed from RB19

Red Bull raised eyebrows after revealing what looked like a slight departure from the all-conquering RB19 which lost just one of the 22 races from the 2023 season.

The RB20 appears to borrow idea ideas from rival Mercedes in regards to the 'zero-pod concept', yet according to Newey the car is still part of the development path from the RB19 - having ruled out going on a brand new concept.

Newey told the Talking Bull podcast recently: "Last year's car was an evolution of '22 in its main points being of course, the normal winter development in terms of aerodynamics, some understanding on what we needed to do with suspension to try to improve the car as well, and getting weight out of it, because we never got down to the weight limit in '22.

"There is that [question], should we have a group that goes out and looks at completely left-field ideas, or do we keep developing the route we've taken?" he asked. "We're resource-limited.

"So we can't do everything and we can't look at every avenue. So we've taken the approach of developing what we've got. Hopefully, that will be the prudent and correct decision."

Red Bull Max Verstappen Adrian Newey