Red Bull Racing’s dominance took a surprising hit in 2024, and there’s disagreement at the top about why it happened.
The season started just like 2023 – with Max Verstappen crushing the competition. But everything changed after the Miami Grand Prix, when star designer Adrian Newey announced he was leaving the team.
From that point on, Red Bull’s performance started sliding. Their once-untouchable RB20 car found itself playing catch-up to Ferrari and McLaren more often than not.
Team boss Christian Horner tried to brush it off. He insisted in September that Newey’s departure had nothing to do with their struggles.
But Helmut Marko, Red Bull’s straight-talking advisor, sees it differently.
“We had started well and dominated, but since Newey left, our engineers have actually had a bit of a hard time getting the most out of the car,” Marko told Autosprint.
The situation got so challenging that what started as a one-team show turned into a four-way battle. McLaren, Ferrari, and Mercedes all took turns fighting for wins.
There was a silver lining though. Marko noted that things started looking up near the season’s end, giving the team hope for the future.
“We’re very optimistic going forward,” he said. “But let’s be honest – from Miami onwards, we weren’t just racing against ourselves anymore.”
The contrast between Horner’s public optimism and Marko’s frank assessment shows just how much Newey’s exit shook things up at Red Bull. After all, how do you easily replace someone known as Formula 1’s greatest car designer?
