Max Verstappen remains confident Red Bull can continue to improve the performance of their RB20 as team principal Christian Horner admitted they are chasing ever smaller gains.
Horner said they are finding “diminishing returns” from their development programme in the third year under the current technical regulations. However Verstappen, who used the only example of a revised floor the team introduced last weekend, won’t accept the idea they can’t keep improving their car.
“I refuse to believe so because then you get lazy,” he said in response to a question from RaceFans.
“I’m confident that everyone within the factory, they’re always pushing flat-out to try and bring bits of performance to the car. But clearly there are a lot of smart people in the world in other teams that are also doing the same thing.”
Red Bull were the team to beat for much of the opening races. However they have only set the quickest outright lap time once in the last five races as McLaren and Mercedes have closed on them.
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Since the beginning of last year, as Red Bull have consistently led the constructors’ championship, their rival have had the benefit of more aerodynamic development time under F1’s performance-balancing rules. Red Bull’s development time was cut further as part of their punishment for exceeding F1’s budget cap in 2021.
“Naturally it [would] always help to have more time,” Verstappen admitted. “But that’s how the rules are to try and slow down the winning team.
“Honestly, when you are the ones chasing, you’re happy that it’s like that, and of course when you’re the ones leading and then you’re being caught up during the season, you naturally look at it like it’s not what you want. But that’s how the rules are written, everyone agreed with it and you just have to deal with it.
Verstappen believes Red Bull’s true potential last weekend was obscured by the fact he damaged his car’s floor in qualifying and practice was disrupted by rain.
“We can see the gain,” he said. “I think just this weekend has been a little bit hit-and-miss with just trying a few bits with the car. And then, of course, the weather doesn’t help.
“But when you look at it, if we wouldn’t have had damage to the floor we would have definitely been in the fight for pole. So that is a positive.
“We just need to keep pushing. We need to keep bringing bits, and I know they will come, and hopefully they will be a little bit better than the other upgrades of the other teams.”
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2024 British Grand Prix
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