‘What I’ve heard’… Red Bull lost ‘so much speed’ after the FIA ‘found something’ on their car

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Red Bull started the 2024 season in the same dominant fashion that they had finished the last. Max Verstappen won four of the first five races at a canter, with only a brake issue in Australia preventing a clean sweep.

At that stage, neutrals were concerned. The 2023 campaign had been the most one-sided in F1 history, with Verstappen remarkably winning 19 out of 22 Grands Prix, and that looked set to continue.

But the season has since developed into one of the most entertaining in recent years. Verstappen remains well on course to win a fourth straight title, having built up a 78-point lead ahead of the final 10 races.

The Dutchman has only won three of the last nine events, but he’s been able to steadily build his advantage by consistently extracting the maximum from the car. That maximum is no longer first place every weekend – it’s often second or third.

McLaren have been virtually a match for the Milton Keynes outfit since their huge Miami upgrade. Many believe the MCL38 is now a better all-round car than the RB20.

Ferrari briefly threatened to challenge before developmental missteps, but they’ve now given way to a resurgent Mercedes. The Silver Arrows won three of the last four before the summer shutdown.

Robin Frijns says FIA investigation may be behind Red Bull loss of form

Various theories have been posited for Red Bull’s apparent regression. Earlier in the year, Adrian Newey admitted they were struggling to extract more performance, having almost perfected the ground effect generation of F1 cars.

Perhaps it was inevitable that teams with the resources of McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari caught up eventually. Sky Sports F1 analyst Ted Kravitz says they’ve outdeveloped Red Bull this year.

But writing his column for formule1.nl, ex-F1 test driver Robin Frijns floated another explanation. He’s heard from reporters in the Spanish media that Red Bull had to change part of their car after an instruction from the FIA.

This may have been triggered by rival teams’ complaints. And Frijns says it could have cost them multiple tenths.

“What’s going on at Red Bull?” he wrote. “In terms of why did they lose so much speed all at once?

“What I’ve heard from the Spanish media is that the FIA ​​found something, or that other teams complained about something specific on the Red Bull car and eventually had to change that too. That’s why they lost a lot of speed.”

The drastic action Red Bull are ‘considering’ with Sergio Perez’s car

Red Bull may still be able to win both championships this year to complete a ‘triple-double’. They lead McLaren by 42 points in the constructors’, but they’re reliant on Sergio Perez raising his game to keep them at bay.

In pursuit of that objective, the team are considering drastic action. Red Bull could take upgrades off Perez’s car on the basis that he was more comfortable in an earlier version of the RB20.

Verstappen has also expressed his frustration with the team’s disappointing upgrade programme. Red Bull aren’t seeing their simulations come to fruition on track.

This has only increased doubts around the 26-year-old’s future with the team. Verstappen will assess Mercedes’ 2025 chassis before he decides whether to make a blockbuster move to the Silver Arrows.