Racing Bulls racing Director Alan Permane believes the team’s recovery from development setbacks in the 2024 Formula 1 season showed “significant strength”.
Permane joined Racing Bulls at the start of 2024 after leaving Alpine halfway through the previous campaign.
It marked the first time the F1 veteran had switched teams in over 30 years, having joined the sport for the first time in the electronics department at Benetton in 1989 and remaining with the Esntone-based outfit through its various rebrands and ownership changes.
His first season with Racing Bulls started positively, with the Faenza-based outfit one of the prominent figures in the midfield.
“So, from what I see we started the season with a decent car, and we quickly added performance to that car, which, over the first few races, improved, improved, improved,” Permane told PlanetF1.
Racing Bulls 2024 season derailed in Spain
Coming into Round 10, the Spanish Grand Prix, Racing Bulls sat sixth in the Constructors’ standings with 28 points, 19 ahead of seventh-placed Haas.
Racing Bulls pinned hopes on an upgrade package boosting the team’s fortunes in Barcelona, but the opposite occurred.
“We had a misstep in Barcelona, where we bought a significant upgrade that we thought was going to be very strong,” said Permane. “It turned out to be not the case.”
Racing Bulls then spent the summer months and beyond trying to recover from the massive setback that was caused by the Barcelona upgrade package, but Permane was impressed that the team learnt from its mistakes to recover.
“A significant strength here – and I don’t say it’s a weakness anywhere else – but a significant strength is that we reacted ever so quickly to that,” he said.
“So we had Barcelona one weekend. It was a disaster. We had Austria the next weekend, and we quickly reacted by changing a lot of parts for the Austria Sprint, and then changed even more parts for the Austrian main race.
“I won’t say we got on top of it, but we learned an awful lot. We reverted back to an earlier spec, but there’s no doubt that the Barcelona upgrade which wasn’t an upgrade cost us a lot of momentum.
“It took us quite a while, until after the summer break, to get back up. We had a small upgrade in Monza, but Monza, Baku, and Singapore, weren’t great at all.
“Then for Austin, we had another new floor, a new iteration of floor that was very good and it really felt like it made the car come alive again. Then in Mexico, we had another upgrade, which, again, was another step so things were back on track.”
Permane ‘impressed’ by Racing Bulls’ handling of setbacks
Permane was also “impressed” with how the Racing Bulls squad handled the hardship.
“I was impressed with the openness, the open-mindedness of no egos, or anything like that, which I think Formula 1 obviously can be guilty of, and people can have fixed views on things,” he said.
“There was none of that. There was just focusing on data and facts if you like. The fact is we were awful. Both cars were out in Q1 and, in the race, we were miles off in the race in Barcelona.
“We knew… it was obvious, there wasn’t really anywhere to hide, but there was nothing. But everyone accepted that, from all departments, and we just worked together to try and fix it.
“I said at the time, it’s awful, but, in the end, it would be good, because we would learn from it. There’s been a willingness to learn from it, from that mistake, and we improved.”
Despite conducting a late-season recovery, Racing Bulls fell to eighth in the final standings behind a resurgent Alpine and a Haas squad that avoided development pitfalls.
Permane acknowledges that without the mid-season derailment, Racing Bulls’ season could have looked very different but is wise to the fact several teams have had issues adding performance to the ground effect machines that make up the present formula.
“If we’d carried on the trajectory from Miami onwards, I’m sure we’d have had a very different season, but I think all teams go through the same thing because these cars are tricky to consistently add downforce to week in, week out. So we’re back on the right trend,” he concluded.
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