Max Verstappen said that Red Bull’s dominance is now “completely gone,” while Lewis Hamilton is certain that the team is “still doing amazing” in the F1 2024 season. Red Bull was heavily favored to destroy the opposition once more in Formula One 2024 after producing the most dominant season in Formula One history in 2023, winning 21 of a possible 22 races as Verstappen cruised to a third consecutive World Championship. Lewis Hamilton says Red Bull F1 2024 issues are not “surprised.”
Thomas Maher provided further reporting. However, Red Bull has recently faced a fresh challenge from Ferrari, McLaren, and Mercedes despite beginning the year with four victories in the first five races, including three one-two finishes for Verstappen and teammate Sergio Perez. Verstappen won the Spanish Grand Prix last weekend, his seventh race of F1 2024 and his 51st in the previous 76 races. McLaren driver Lando Norris edged the Dutchman’s RB20 to pole position.
After qualifying in Barcelona, Verstappen said to the media, including PlanetF1.com, that Red Bull’s dominance “is completely gone” and that the team is currently “lacking a bit of pace.” What Austrian racer Max Verstappen said on Thursday
Only a few weeks prior, Verstappen’s father, former Formula One driver Jos, declared that Red Bull’s era of supremacy had “come to an end” after the driver could only finish sixth in Monaco. When asked if he was shocked by Red Bull’s growing inability to keep an edge over the opposition, Hamilton responded that team convergence is normal in the third season of the current ground-effect rules.
I think it’s just the way the sport goes and I think we are nearing the end of this generation of cars, so often what happens [is that] it tails off in performance, finding gains is harder.
“They’ve been leading for all these years and also they have less development time, so it’s only natural that people will eventually slowly catch up, but they’re still doing amazing.”
Meanwhile, Hamilton’s team-mate George Russell laughed off the suggestion that Red Bull are currently having a difficult time.
Additionally, he drew attention to Red Bull’s limited development time under the current sliding-scale formula in Formula One, which gives front-running teams less time in the wind tunnel and computer-generated imagery (CFD) than rear-running teams. Am I surprised? he asked the media, citing PlanetF1.com in Austria among others. Not that I’m surprised, to be honest.
It’s just the nature of the sport, in my opinion, and I believe this generation of vehicles is coming to an end. Performance tends to taper off, making it more difficult to discover gains. It’s only logical that people will eventually catch up to them because they’ve been in the lead for so long and have had less time to improve, but they’re still doing fantastically.” George Russell, Hamilton’s teammate, dismissed the idea that Red Bull is currently going through a rough patch with a laugh.
“They’ve won seven of the first ten races,” he exclaimed. When it was pointed out to him that Red Bull is still having problems, Russell said, “It doesn’t look too difficult!”