Verstappen Dismisses Red Bull's Old Wind Tunnel As Potential Issue
F1
Max Verstappen suggested that Red Bull's old wind tunnel is unlikely to be the cause of the current issues facing his F1 team.
Wind tunnels play an important role in developing and testing the aero components of Formula One cars. F1 teams use wind tunnels to see whether computer simulation ideas work and to analyze the effectiveness of various components.
Red Bull's win tunnel is located near Bedford and is over 70 years old. The Austrian team is working on a new facility they hope will be operational by 2026.
However, at the moment, they are stil stuck with the old wind tunnel. Could it negatively affect Red Bull's development? Max Verstappen shared his opinion when speaking to Motorsport.com:
"It's true that we have a fairly old wind tunnel, but until this year it did everything right. Some things are just hard to understand. You see that with all the other teams as well, except McLaren."
Verstappen's point is that the car that Red Bull built in 2023 - statistically the most dominant car in the history of Formula 1, came out of the exact same old wind tunnel. So that makes it seem like it's working just fine. He continued:
"All teams have had their own problems, including teams with modern wind tunnels. I think it is just extremely difficult to fine-tune things perfectly or to get exactly the right data out of it. That can be down to a lot of things in the wind tunnel itself or how it correlates with the track."
Red Bull struggled with on-track data that didn't match computer simulations for a couple of races. However, the team claims to have identified the main problem and plans to completely eliminate it with an upgrade in Austin.
The team from Milton Keynes actually took the first step towards the Austin upgrade in Azerbaijan when they introduced a new floor. Verstappen said:
"Yes, it felt better. That was already a good step for us. I do think we are moving in the right direction now, it will take some time."
"You can't turn something like this around in one or two weeks. But I do think the team was happy with what they saw in Baku as well."
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