Marko denies Newey's departure had any impact on Red Bull's poor performance 

The alarm bell has not yet been rung, but the situation is becoming increasingly alarming among Red Bull. In Monza last weekend, Max Verstappen and the Austrians have gone a 6th weekend in a row without a single victory. A series which further confirms the difficulties of the world champion team while the competition is getting stronger every week, like a McLaren now efficient everywhere. 

But how can we explain this bad patch? Several factors could be at the origin, including development. In a sport like F1 where every part produced is important, it only takes one of them not working as expected for the flow of the car to be completely impacted. Is this perhaps linked to the fact that Adrian Newey announced last May his departure at the end of the current season? A theory quickly dismissed internally. 

« People think our slowdown has something to do with his departure, Helmut Marko says in its traditional SpeedWeek column. But that's not true, because Newey was no longer involved in all the details of the vehicle's development by spring. (moment of the first developments of the campaign). What cannot be denied is that Newey is Newey, a man with incredible experience, and that has always set him apart. But our problem lies elsewhere. » 

An RB20 hyper sensitive to the slightest change in conditions? 

When it comes to defending this turbulent zone crossed by Red Bull, Helmu Marko admits that the RB20 has become a finicky car over the course of the season. Alone in its yard at the start of the year, it is now catalogued as unpredictable in Milton Keynes where a very tight operating window has been recognised in recent times. 

« We have turned a racing car that dominated the early races into a more or less unpredictable and very difficult car to drive. We need to fix that., continues the Austrian advisor. 

Max Verstappen finished second in Q2 at Monza, just behind Hamilton, but then he had no grip in Q3 with both sets of tyres. We explain such variations in performance in a few minutes by the fact that we have created a car that reacts extremely sensitively to the slightest changes, whether it is the outside temperature, a different type of tyre or driving with less fuel on board. All this added up means that the good balance of the car disappears again. » Furthermore, this reflects a gap between the wind tunnel and the track, where the results are not at all the same.

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