Peter Windsor pinpoints the key Red Bull issue he thinks Adrian Newey could have ‘sorted out’

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Red Bull has faced a difficult second half of the 2024 season after initially dominating the start of the year with the RB20.

They have been saved by the fact that Max Verstappen built up a healthy enough lead at the beginning of the season and was consistent throughout the year, enabling the points gap to Lando Norris to effectively stay the same once it all started to backfire at the Miami Grand Prix (52 points).

In the last six races of the season, it is crunch time for the team to find answers to their current issues with the RB20, which Verstappen clearly has not been happy with in the last two races.

Balance issues seem to be the main problem, but overall Red Bull has been unable to consistently match the race pace of McLaren and in some cases Ferrari.

The team has blamed the problems on the correlation between its wind tunnel, which was built in the aftermath of WW2 by the British Army, and what is happening at the track. But Peter Windsor has questioned whether this is the case when speaking on his YouTube channel.

Peter Windsor unconvinced by Red Bull’s complaints about key ‘correlation’ issue

Adrian Newey announced he would be leaving the team at the end of the season around the Miami GP, which was the start of their troubles.

Although Verstappen went on to win the subsequent races in Imola, Canada, and Spain, the Dutchman hasn’t won since the latter in June and faces pressure to keep his championship lead from Norris.

Windsor believes their problems would have been easier to solve if Newey was still involved, given Sergio Perez has noted his influence on race weekends.

“Who’s saying they’ve got correlation issues? They love that, don’t they? When the car is going slow, it’s always the wind tunnel correlation,” said Windsor.

“There is nobody better than Adrian Newey to have got a wind tunnel sorted out. If Newey left the wind tunnel before he decided to leave Red Bull, maybe other engineers have gone in there and been asking too much of the tunnel.

“Most teams are on top of that now and ‘correlation issues’ is a bit like saying ‘tyre issues’ or ‘balance issues’ or whatever. It’s only scratching the surface.”

Red Bull would be ‘admitting defeat’ if they don’t make key Austin change

Red Bull plans to bring an upgrade to their car in Austin that should put them back on track, although Christian Horner has warned that it might backfire on them.

F1 insiders believe Red Bull would be ‘admitting defeat’ in the development war with McLaren if they turned up without any meaningful upgrades to their car in Austin.

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Red Bull Racing from engine to Ford links

McLaren has been holding back on issuing its latest upgrade through fears that it would upset their current form on track.

Both teams have likely used the mini-break between Singapore and Austin to optimise their packages at their factories, after not being forced to shut down like they would normally during the summer break.