Verstappen Hints There Is More To Come From Red Bull's RB20

Sunday, 25 February 2024 at 02:30

Speaking to the media after the last day of pre-season testing in Bahrain, Verstappen suggested there is more to come from Red Bull's 2024 challenger.

From the time that Red Bull released their 2024 challenger - RB20, on track on the first day of pre-season testing, it seemed everything just worked as well as it could for the Austrian F1 team.

Red Bull introduced quite aggressive changes to their previous year's super-dominant RB19, so the question was whether the car would work on track.

But judging from the timing sheets and reactions of Red Bull's team members, everything went smoothly, and the team's real-time data correlated to what the team predicted from simulations.

All teams try to hide their true pace during the testing days. Nevertheless, the triple World Champion still set the fastest lap of the session on the first day, more than a second ahead of everyone else.

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Teams like Ferrari, McLaren, or Aston Martin hoped to challenge for the race wins and ultimately the title this year, but seeing Verstappen in RB20 on track destroyed their hopes.

Charles Leclerc said he feels Red Bull will "unfortunately" start ahead. Lando Norris said McLaren is a long way behind both Ferrari and Red Bull.

And Fernando Alonso suggested 19 drivers already start feeling there won't be a chance of competing for the title against Verstappen in 2024.

Moreover, Max Verstappen suggested there is still more to come from RB 20 regarding the pace. He told the media at Bahrain International Circuit.

"Well, the team believes that with how the car is, there is more potential to find. So, that is now up to us to unlock."

Nobody expected it, but could the 2024 season be even more dominant than 2023? Helmut Marko suggested Red Bull expects a pace advantage of three-tenths of a second per lap.

That would amount to 17 seconds over a Bahrain Grand Prix. While that is still quite a lot, it is more than two times less than last year, so that would suggest we should see a closer season this year.