Steiner Warns Red Bull: 2024 Performance Masked By Verstappen's Brilliance
F1
Former F1 team principal Guenther Steiner warned that Red Bull might not be as fast as it seemed based on the results of the 2024 season.
2024 was a really strange season for Red Bull Racing and its fans. Following a super-dominant 2023 and the first two Grand Prix weekends of 2024, everyone thought it would be another year of dominance.
However, as we now know, that couldn't have been further from the truth. The F1 team from Milton Keynes seemingly fell behind McLaren (and later Ferrari) somewhere around the Miami Grand Prix and hasn't returned to the top since then.
Guenther Steiner, former team principal of the Haas F1 team, pointed out that the Austrian team needs to make some improvements before the start of the 2025 season.
While Red Bull won the Drivers' Championship with Max Verstappen last year, Steiner thinks that's really just down to the four-time world champion, who maximized every opportunity.
However, McLaren had a better car overall at the end of the year and if the British team improves at maximizing their results, the team from Milton Keynes and Verstappen could be in trouble. Steiner told GPBlog:
"They [Red Bull] lost their way a little bit last year, I would say. It was not seen this much because Max bailed them out with the win in Brazil, with the win of the World Championship."
"They were not as good as they finished, while on the other side, I think McLaren were better than they looked like. They didn't get everything out of it, while Red Bull with Max, they got out more than they had."
Steiner's statement suggests that the British team is the favorite before the start of the 2025 season, but he also warned that everything can turn around quickly, and ultimately, it doesn't take much for Red Bull to catch up.
"But look at McLaren. They figured it out pretty quick, so we don't have to see always just the negative."
"The normal thing is, it takes time to get out of it. But McLaren, they did it in months. Because when they started at 23, they were nowhere."
"The normal thing is, it takes time to get out of it. But McLaren, they did it in months. Because when they started at 23, they were nowhere."
"And then within 23, they got better. So it is possible to do. And we don't have to forget last year. End of last year, everybody was very close together."
"So you don't need half a second, you need two tenths and you're going from P4 to winning."
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