Pierre Wache has responded to Adrian Newey’s claims that Red Bull’s issues in the 2024 Formula 1 campaign came down to “inexperience,” saying “it doesn’t change anything”.
The Red Bull RB20 started 2024 as the dominant F1 package but from Round 6 in Miami, the competition had caught up as proven by Lando Norris’ maiden Grand Prix win with McLaren.
That moment came in tandem with Newey announcing his departure from Red Bull and the squad’s former Chief Technical Officer was on the periphery as the RB21 encountered a series of developmental hurdles triggered by balance issues.
Speaking to Auto Motor und Sport, Newey said he could see those issues developing late on in 2023 and “From what I can see from the outside, but I don’t know, the guys at Red Bull – this is no criticism – I think they just, perhaps through lack of experience, kept going in that same direction.”
Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner told select media including Motorsport Week that he hadn’t “seen those comments” when probed on the matter ahead of the F1 75 season launch event and the squad’s Technical Director, Wache, isn’t fazed by the remarks either.
“It’s true that I have a lot less experience than [Newey],” Wache told PlanetF1.com.
“He’s 66 years old, and I’m 50 – 16 years less experience than him. I cannot comment on that.
“I don’t take it personally, and maybe it’s true. It doesn’t change anything, I think what you have to learn… this type of comment, for me, doesn’t matter.”
It’s important Red Bull learns from its mistakes – Wache
For Wache, “what is important” is whether or not Red Bull has learnt from its development pitfalls in 2024.
Wache acknowledged that the dominant run in 2023, whereby Red Bull won all but one of the 22 GPs scheduled, offered little opportunity to learn that made its 2024 hardships more difficult to overcome.
After a 10-race winless run in the middle of the 2024 season, wins at Interlagos and Qatar for Max Verstappen showed that Red Bull had turned a corner with its design deficiencies.
“We didn’t do a good enough job last year, and we lost ground in terms of performance – maybe by experience, maybe by misunderstanding some stuff, and we tried to correct it,” Wache said.
“What is correct is that it looks, for me, that we understand.
“I think this is how you learn the most. When we were in 2023, we learned less than last year, and every problem you have gives you a little bit more to understand what you need to do.
“In this sense, I think it was very beneficial, and it’s what I enjoy the most. Fixing a problem is our job.
“Personally, it doesn’t affect me. From my point of view, my job is not personal.
“My job is to make sure, in an engineering competition, I’m more affected by the fact that we are not good enough and losing, than a personal comment about myself.”
READ MORE – Max Verstappen urges Red Bull to move on from Adrian Newey
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