RB CEO Peter Bayer explained there was a “decisive” event during the team’s 2024 Formula 1 campaign that triggered a “complete restart” in development.
RB finished eighth in this year’s Constructors’ Championship with 46 points, 19 behind sixth-placed Alpine.
The Faenza-based outfit held onto that coveted sixth spot through Round 18 of the campaign, relinquishing to Haas after the United States Grand Prix (Round 19).
By the time F1 reached Las Vegas and Alpine had scored its remarkable double podium at Interlagos, RB had slipped to eighth – a position from which it failed to recover.
Asked by Auto Motor und Sport where things went wrong, Bayer was clear in his answer: an upgrade package at the Spanish GP in June unravelled the team’s campaign.
“There was actually only one decisive event and that was the upgrade in Barcelona,” he said.
“That shook up the concept of the car.”
Bayer said how the meeting afterwards showed there was a conflict between aerodynamic simulations and mechanical set-up before Team Principal Laurent Mekies made the decision to scrap the Spanish GP upgrade package.
“The meetings afterwards were really fascinating,” Bayer added.
“The aerodynamicists, the performance engineers and the deployment team sat together and then the aerodynamicist says that all the data proves that the thing works and that the others have set it up incorrectly.
“Then the race team changes the setup and suddenly you’re on a completely wrong track.
“Laurent has realised that we’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere.
“Then you have to have the courage and take several steps back.
“We then started again [with the spec before] Barcelona. We lost an incredible amount of time there.
“The upgrades are staggered. It suddenly became clear that the next upgrades, which were based on the Barcelona package, would not help either.
“We had to completely restart the process.”
How Barcelona derailed RB’s season
RB entered the Spanish GP in a comfortable sixth place in the standings.
After the previous round in Montreal, Canada, the plucky Italian squad had 28 points, 19 ahead of seventh-placed Haas.
But Barcelona was a disaster with both RB cars out in Q1 and each failing to score in the race.
The rounds wasted deliberating whether to scrap the Spanish GP upgrade package and further time spent recovering that ground wiped out RB’s progress across the European leg of the campaign.
The 10 rounds inclusive of the Spanish and United States GP saw RB score a paltry eight points as Haas successfully upgraded its challenger to score 21 points across the same period.
By this time of the season, RB had gotten itself back on track – understanding its F1 car and being able to build its performance.
Unfortunately, Haas had done so too and Alpine’s United States GP upgrade inspired an incredible run of form.
Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly capitalised upon a red flag in the super wet Sao Paulo GP to finish second and third and all of a sudden the race for sixth in the Constructors’ standings became a three-horse race.
Three teams, fighting for the fringe points-paying positions made RB’s job twice as hard just as it had got its car fixed.
Despite improvements, Haas and Alpine had the edge with the latter enjoying an inspired Gasly who added to his Brazil podium with fifth and seventh in Qatar and Abu Dhabi respectively.
Alpine’s resurgence aside, RB’s Spain upgrade was a massive derailment, costly in terms of Championship position and allegedly tens of millions of Dollars.
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