Helmut Marko explains how ‘post-war’ building has impacted Red Bull’s car struggles in 2024

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Red Bull has been the benchmark team in F1 having won back-to-back titles and produced one of the most dominant cars of the modern era in 2023.

The RB20 was set to be a continuation of that and while it did produce race wins at the start of the season for Max Verstappen, their advantage started to fade as others introduced bigger upgrade packages.

After Verstappen and Sergio Perez failed to qualify in the top five at Monza, Christian Horner conceded that Red Bull has now the fourth-fastest car.

At the following race in Baku, McLaren finally overturned their lead in the Constructors’ Championship and are now 40 points clear heading into the final six races of the season.

Red Bull is planning their final upgrade to the RB20 for the US GP which they are hopeful can put them back on track to defending their title. Helmut Marko highlighted how much of their car development has impacted the ageing facilities at their Milton Keynes factory when speaking to Formel1.de.

Red Bull’s post-war wind tunnel impacting car development

Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache has previously identified three potential reasons why their 2024 upgrades aren’t working, tracing it back to a combination of factors that can affect their output.

Marko believes their ageing wind tunnel, which was formerly used by the British Army before they moved into it in 2005, is having an impact on the correlation between the performance gains they see at the factory and how it translates to the track.

“A more modern wind tunnel would help. Our current is a post-war wind tunnel that the British Army built and of course, it has its disadvantages. For example, the warm-up time and all that,” said Marko.

“We are far from being up to date and I hope that perhaps our new wind tunnel can already be put into operation.”

Red Bull faces more restrictions compared to other teams

F1’s Aerodynamic Testing Restrictions govern how much time a team is allowed to spend in the wind tunnel or on computer simulations and are reset midway through a season and at the end based on championship order.

As Red Bull was leading the Constructors’ Championship midway through the season, they had less time they could use in the wind tunnel compared to everyone else.

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This means there is less opportunity for Red Bull to test various parts on their car before it takes to the track and with their ageing facilities, this could take its toll on the defending champions.

With Adrian Newey no longer involved, the next few months are going to be a real test to see if Red Bull can turn things around and enable Verstappen to triumph against Lando Norris.