Max Verstappen believes a costly rear-wing mistake from 2022 has hindered his 2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Heading into the Las Vegas Grand Prix Max Verstappen has a 62-point advantage over his nearest rival, Lando Norris. For the Dutchman to wrap the championship up in Sin City, all he needs to do is finish ahead of the McLaren.
However, problems surfaced during practice when both Red Bull cars rounded out the session in 17th and 18th, respectively. The team struggled with top-speed performance in the straight, with data showing the car to be 7km/h slower than its rivals.
Following the session, the issue Red Bull was facing was revealed.
Unlike other teams, Red Bull hasn’t created a low-drag rear wing, which means for high-speed tracks like Monza and Las Vegas, the RB20 struggles. This meant the mechanics had to modify the existing rear wing in hopes of finding more speed without compromising reliability.
“We opted to not make one, we don’t have one,”
“So this is already from 2022, I think we just never thought we would run it that low. And then with the budget cap, you choose your priorities and we shifted that.” Verstappen said to media after qualifying in fifth place. However, the three-time world champion was half a second off George Russell’s pole position time.
“We would have liked to have a lower wing, a lower-downforce wing, or at least a different shape, a more efficient shape.
“It’s something I will look at but, on the other hand, there’s only one more year left with these rules, and I don’t know if it makes sense.
“But for me at least, it feels a bit like we throw away two race weekends like this because you definitely lose too much on the straights.
Verstappen was asked where he felt he lost the most time to which he responded: “In the corners and on the straights.”
“We know that with our wing naturally you lose top speed, especially with the DRS open. It’s a bit of a handicap.” He added.
Verstappen also said that tyres were an issue for the team: “We knew that and that’s something that we have to deal with on a track like this track, like Monza. But also besides that, I always felt like, you know, the tyres were a bit of a struggle for us to get them in the right operating window.
“I do think that we did the best we could in qualifying with what we had, and then P5 is the result. We got a bit lucky because with Lewis not putting a lap in, otherwise it would have been P6. I think we really maximised what we could.”
“We just don’t have the pace. We come up short on the straight with that rear wing, and then we also don’t have the grip- and that becomes very difficult, compared to Mercedes, Ferrari and even an Alpine! But most important for me is that we’re ahead of McLaren.”
Featured image credits: Song Haiyuan/MB Media via Getty Images