As the reigning F1 World Champions, Christian Horner’s Red Bull will be going strong in the 2024 season.
However, the performance of the RB20 is reportedly not as good as that of the RB19 that won the team’s hearts last season.
Max Verstappen won the recent race in Canada, but only 3.879 seconds behind Lando Norris, showing that Red Bull’s rivals are catching up from different directions.
But the Austrian team does not believe that they will catch up without clever tactics.
For this reason, Red Bull decided to attack the other three teams in the current F1 top four: Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes.
Christian Horner’s team complained to the FIA that these three teams are currently using flexi-wings.
These are modified front wings that are no longer allowed in F1.
If the teams actually use this technology, they can bend the front wing of their cars to an extent that is not allowed by FIA rules, which can greatly increase their speed.
After Red Bull’s complaint was revealed, fans have been attacking the Austrian team, believing that the complaint is just an excuse to hide the fact that Red Bull staff are afraid of losing the top spot.
So what did veteran F1 expert Matthew Summerfield have to say about this flexi-wing saga?
The onus lies on Red Bull to improve
Over the last few seasons, Red Bull has become the most powerful force in F1.
However, the team has also had several clashes with the FIA over rule violations, such as exceeding the cost cap for 2021.
This has led to the idea that Red Bull often skirts FIA regulations, but the team now claims that they do. Their rivals Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes also do this.
Matthew Summerfield commented on the complaints that all three of the Milton Keynes-based teams were using illegal front wings.
Summerfield said on the podcast “Missed Apex”: The FIA also has other testing methods on the track, such as high-speed cameras mounted on the car. So we will see if this (the use of Flexi-Wings) happens.
Last year’s Technical Directive 18 plagued many teams in this regard, but other teams seem to have dealt with it and found ways around it. So trying to mitigate this by another technical guideline or rule change could be very difficult.
So my answer is: “Just do better, because that’s what F1 is all about.” So Summerfield’s brutal warning to Red Bull represents the fact that they simply need to improve, rather than complain to the FIA.
If the team continues to complain, Red Bull’s performance will eventually decline, just as it did in Canada when the FIA punished the team for breaking the rules.
Christian Horner’s team invited penalty for performance in Canada
Red Bull is currently seeking justice from the FIA for its complaints against other F1 teams.
However, it was the Austrian team that no longer agreed with the F1 rules after the Canadian Grand Prix.
This happened because the team allowed new contract driver Sergio Pérez to continue on the circuit with his badly damaged car without stopping on the side of the road.
If Checo had stopped, the safety car would have come on and Lando Norris could have caught up with Verstappen.
Race officials, seeing Red Bull as having allegedly manipulated the situation, imposed a 25,000 euro fine and Sergio Pérez dropped three places.
Asked if Perez’s team deserved to be penalized, Red Bull’s chief advisor Helmut Marko said that they allowed Perez to continue driving until he reached the pits because they did not know how much damage his RB20 had sustained.
Red Bull is already at a disadvantage in the Spanish Grand Prix due to Perez’s grid penalty. So their complaints against Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes could be a conspiracy to get the FIA to punish these teams as well.
Or maybe Red Bull’s mechanics don’t actually trust the other teams’ front wings. Do you think Red Bull has the right to file a complaint to the FIA against the other top four teams?
