Red Bull star Max Verstappen is suspicious that the team’s rivals broke the rules during the 2024 Formula 1 campaign.
Verstappen’s fourth Drivers’ title became quite the challenge for the Dutchman as his RB20 suffered balance issues in the second half of the season and the likes of McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes continued winning.
Clouding matters was a series of technical controversies throughout the campaign.
First, Red Bull and Ferrari questioned the flexing front wings on the McLaren and Mercedes machines before team Papaya courted controversy for the ‘mini-DRS’ flexible rear wing.
Red Bull also came under fire for a front-bib adjuster before pointing the finger at un-named teams for allegedly injecting water into tyres as an illegal cooling method.
The FIA looked into all matters and found no party guilty of illegality, although McLaren was made to change its rear wing.
Verstappen remains suspicious however, telling De Telegraaf: “There were things that happened in the background, which meant that we had no chance at all in certain races.
“I know that for sure, but no one will ever admit that,” he added.
The FIA has since sought to tighten the rules surrounding the flexibility of rear wing elements for the 2025 F1 campaign.
Verstappen explains Red Bull turnaround
Compounding Red Bull matters beyond suspected foul play from rivals was its issues developing the RB20.
After a strong start, Red Bull developed itself into a corner whereby the RB20 had balance issues, hampering performance.
That prompted a 10-race win drought between Spain and Brazil for Verstappen, who explained what went wrong and how.
“I saw some graphs at one point when we were looking at the data,” the Dutchman said.
“I saw certain aerodynamic shifts in how we entered the corners, turned in and also in terms of ride heights.
“Different from the car from the year before. I said: ‘Hey, it’s very clear that this and this is the problem, isn’t it?’ And that was right, I heard. I had not seen those lines, those graphs, before.
“I said then that it was clear what we had to work on, because of course the engineers know exactly what had been changed compared to the car from last year.
“And at the beginning of the season, we were still winning our races convincingly, but I already felt that the balance of the car didn’t feel the way I wanted it to.
“But then we still had a big lead over other teams, who maybe hadn’t had a very good winter.”
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