Australian GP shows Red Bull face a season-long PROBLEM
Australian GP shows Red Bull face a season-long PROBLEM
Max Verstappen's class-of-the-field racing performances have become a given in recent seasons.
The Dutch racer now boasts three world championships, with two won in some of the most dominant fashion the sport has seen.
READ MORE: F1 team boss teases SHOCK 'talks' with Verstappen
It's no surprise that Red Bull Racing looks equally as controlling as their 26-year-old ace, but the 2024 Australian GP suggests it's not as clear-cut as the results show.
The Milton Keynes team suffered their worst point score in Melbourne on Sunday since their pointless season-opening 2022 round.
READ MORE: Marko hits out at POOR Ricciardo pace compared to team-mate
Problems for Perez
After a busy day for Sergio Perez, the Mexican crossed the line in P5, overtaking both Aston Martins and George Russell's Mercedes, but only finishing one place higher than he started.
When the team become a one-car squad with an Adrian Newey-designed feat of engineering underneath their remaining pilot, a distant P5 isn't a good look.
It's not breaking news that Perez does not turn in performances like Verstappen on anything like a regular basis, so it's no surprise he didn't win.
However, the team reported their sole remaining car suffered underfloor damage in Australia, somewhat explaining the discrepancy.
In an era where the downforce generated by ground-effect aerodynamics is essential for cornering, it's undeniable that a car won't perform as strongly with underfloor problems.
The culprit Red Bull Racing's Team Principal Christian Horner pointed to was a stuck tear-off under the car.
While the number of ruined races these small flaps of plastic have caused continues to grow, the sceptic in me can't help but wonder how Verstappen would've coped in the same scenario.
The Dutchman had smoke billowing from his right-rear wheel, which eventually met a fiery and explosive end.
And yet the reigning champion kept close to Carlos Sainz for the entire lap after the Spaniard passed him — despite essentially racing with a three-wheeled car.
READ MORE: Ricciardo set to be replaced at Japanese Grand Prix
Damining data from Down Under
Checking the lap times that Perez clocked around the tear-off's unwelcome addition to his car doesn't help the Mexican's cause.
Perez enjoyed the benefits of the slipstream and DRS in his recovery drive forward after his pit stop, taking times (mostly) in the mid-high 1:21s aside from the Lewis Hamilton-induced Virtual Safety Car period.
Following his pass on Fernando Alonso, when the underfloor damage reportedly came, those laps dropped into the low 1:22s, around half a second slower than when he had cars ahead of him.
As well as not enjoying any tow, distant or otherwise, the 34-year-old also had hard compound tyres with 13 laps of use to their name.
For comparison, he (mostly) ran in the mid-1:20s for the first 15 laps of his final stint before slowing to mid-1:21s as the race approached its ending under the Virtual Safety Car - a one-second drop with no new underfloor damage reported.
I don't have the data Red Bull has, so I can only look at the lap times by Perez, but I'm not sold that his lack of pace is solely due to downforce loss.
Whether or not it's true, it's a convenient line for the team to use on their worst weekend in over two years.
Especially when another possible explanation might make their future success seem terrifyingly fragile in such a turbulent driver market...
READ MORE: Mercedes driver suggests Hamilton struggles could be irreversible
Red Bull Racing is a one-man team
The level Verstappen operates in F1 right now is approaching alien readings; he's twice achieved nine consecutive race wins so easily that it feels inevitable he'll beat his own record of 10 successive victories.
In Verstappen's latest period of domination, Perez has claimed just three podiums, two in 2024.
Perez also hasn't secured a pole position since Miami in May last year, even though his all-conquering teammate failed to qualify first on seven occasions since.
Rubens Barrichello and Valtteri Bottas also could not best their championship-dominating teammate.
Yet they were the safe pair of hands to call upon should the driver on the other side of the garage suffer a mechanical problem or have an off weekend.
You got the impression that either could have an Eddie Irvine-esque push for the championship if the circumstances called for it and the team put all their energy behind them, but I don't see that at Red Bull Racing with their number two driver.
Judging by Perez's performance, tear-off or no tear-off, the 2024 Australian GP would put the championship-winning team around par with, or just below, Ferrari and McLaren.
It's already been said that Verstappen made the difference in 2023, not Red Bull. F1's Melbourne afternoon suggests that's still the case in 2024.
The team must hope this shock mechanical unreliability for Verstappen isn't the start of more woes because they already have something unreliable in the cockpit on the other side of their garage.
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F1 Race Calendar 2024
-
GP BAHRAIN
29 Feb - 2 Mar
Max Verstappen
-
GP SAUDI ARABIA
7 - 9 Mar
Max Verstappen
-
GP AUSTRALIA
22 - 24 Mar
Carlos Sainz
-
GP JAPAN
5 - 7 Apr
Max Verstappen
-
GP CHINA
19 - 21 Apr
Max Verstappen
-
GP USA
3 - 5 May
Lando Norris
- GP ITALY 17 - 19 May
- GP MONACO 24 - 26 May
- GP CANADA 7 - 9 Jun
- GP SPAIN 21 - 23 Jun
- GP AUSTRIA 28 - 30 Jun
- GP GREAT BRITAIN 5 - 7 Jul
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F1 Standings
Drivers
- Oliver Bearman
- Charles Leclerc
- Carlos Sainz
- Lando Norris
- Oscar Piastri
- Pierre Gasly
- Esteban Ocon
- Sergio Pérez
- Max Verstappen
- Alexander Albon
- Logan Sargeant
- Lewis Hamilton
- George Russell
- Nico Hülkenberg
- Kevin Magnussen
- Fernando Alonso
- Lance Stroll
- Valtteri Bottas
- Zhou Guanyu
- Daniel Ricciardo
- Yuki Tsunoda
Races
- Gulf Air Grand Prix of Bahrain 2024
- Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 2024
- Grand Prix of Australia 2024
- MSC Cruises Grand Prix of Japan 2024
- Grand Prix of China 2024
- Miami Grand Prix 2024
- Gran Premio dell'Emilia Romagna 2024
- Grand Prix of Monaco 2024
- Grand Prix du Canada 2024
- Gran Premio de España 2024
- Grand Prix of Austria 2024
- Grand Prix of Great Britain 2024
- Grand Prix of Hungary 2024
- Grand Prix of Belgium 2024
- Heineken Dutch Grand Prix 2024
- Grand Prix of Italy 2024
- Grand Prix of Azerbaijan 2024
- Grand Prix of Singapore 2024
- Grand Prix of the United States 2024
- Gran Premio de la Ciudad de Mexico 2024
- Grande Prêmio de São Paulo 2024
- Heineken Silver Las Vegas Grand Prix 2024
- Qatar Grand Prix 2024
- Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi 2024
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