‘Unheard of’… Ted Kravitz can’t believe one issue Red Bull are having in 2024

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Red Bull arrived at this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix looking to avoid a three-race winless streak. For the first time all season, the Bulls have been beaten in back-to-back Grands Prix.

Max Verstappen looked on course to win in Austria before a botched pit stop brought Lando Norris back into play during the final stint. After a multi-lap battle, the two drivers made contact and both suffered punctures.

Verstappen managed to salvage fifth, even after crawling back to the pits and receiving a 10-second penalty, but he handed victory to George Russell. And then, at Silverstone a week later, it was his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton who prevailed.

The reigning world champion made a highly uncharacteristic error in qualifying, damaging the underbody of his RB20 by running into the gravel. He had to settle for fourth on the grid and struggled to keep up with his rivals for much of the race.

Indeed, Verstappen even lost positions to both McLaren cars in the first half of the race – an exceptionally rare sight. Fortunately, a perfectly executed strategy kept them in play and he was able to re-pass Norris for second in an electric hard-tyre stint.

Still, Red Bull are facing their longest victory drought since the end of the 2021 season if they can’t win at the Hungaroring this weekend. McLaren and Mercedes have been chipping away at their advantage in the constructors’ standings.

Ted Kravitz stunned that McLaren are ‘outdeveloping’ Red Bull

Red Bull started the season with the kind of gap they had enjoyed for virtually the entire 2023 season. The RB19 was the most dominant car in F1 history, winning 21 out of 22 races, and the RB20 looked a worthy successor.

Only a terminal brake issue at the Australian GP denied Verstappen a clean sweep of the first five races. He won the other four with ease.

But McLaren then introduced an ‘astonishing’ upgrade in Miami, where Norris scored his first-ever win. While that required an element of luck, he’s consistently competed for victory since.

The MCL38 is now arguably the best all-round car on the grid, while Mercedes have also made a breakthrough with their W15. Speaking on Ted’s Podbook, Sky Sports F1’s Ted Kravitz expressed his amazement at the development curves of the top teams this season.

“It’s very rare, almost unheard of, for Red Bull Racing to be out-developed by McLaren and now Mercedes,” he said. “How has that happened?

“Max said ‘you know, we’re kind of asking ourselves that and we need to sort of understand why. I don’t think it will be something that’s the case for long but once we get the upgrades on you might find that we stretch our legs and move ahead of McLaren and Mercedes’.”

Zak Brown accuses Red Bull of ‘insulting’ F1 rivals with cost-cap breach explanation

With little to split Red Bull and McLaren over the second quarter of the season, an intense rivalry is developing between the two teams. They haven’t regularly battled one another for race wins since 2012.

Things have remained largely cordial between Verstappen and Norris. The latter was briefly livid after the Austrian GP incident but later backtracked on his demands for an apology.

McLaren bosses were annoyed with Norris for accepting what they saw as a psychological defeat. Indeed, there seems to be more tension between team principals Zak Brown and Christian Horner.

This week, the McLaren CEO renewed his criticism of the Milton Keynes outfit for breaching the cost cap in 2021. Brown said Red Bull ‘insulted’ their F1 rivals by partly attributing it to catering costs, and demanded greater accountability.