Red Bull Prepares To Concede Defeat To McLaren, Official Says

According to a top Red Bull official, the team is preparing to lose the 2024 Constructors’ Championship to McLaren. As a team, Red Bull is solely focusing on the Driver’s Championship trophy for Max Verstappen. 

This comes as a surprise to many who watched Red Bull dominate the 2023 Formula 1 season, with Verstappen winning 21 races and claiming his third World Championship title. Coming into the 2024 season, the same outcome was expected, and Verstappen won four of the first five races

F1 fans looking to wager on the performance of the winning team turned to the best sports betting sites in the hopes of Red Bull continuing to dominate the field. It appeared a safe bet, as none of the other nine teams on the grid could match their prowess. 

But despite the strong start for both Verstappen and teammate Sergio Perez in 2024, the team’s performance has declined as the season progressed. Verstappen has gone the past six races without standing on the top step of the podium, with his last win at the Spanish Grand Prix in June. 

There are only eight races remaining, and McLaren’s Lando Norris is creeping closer in the Drivers Championship, while the papaya-orange team is just eight points behind Red Bull in the Constructor’s Championship following the Italian Grand Prix in Monza on September 1. The Temple of Speed track saw Verstappen finishing sixth – one of his worst performances – a full 37.9 seconds behind Ferrari winner Charles Leclerc. 

It is possible that Red Bull may lose their Championship lead in the upcoming Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the first time the team won’t be leading since May 2022 when they took the title from Mercedez. 

Following the Italian Grand Prix, Verstappen told reporters that “both championships are not realistic.” He spoke about the car, stating that it is currently undrivable: “I’ve said a lot and now it’s up to the team to come with a lot of changes to the car, because we basically went from a very dominant car to an undrivable car in the space of six to eight months.” He continued to describe the RB20 as “a monster” to drive.

According to the publication Blick, a senior staff member of Red Bull Racing has already given up hope of securing the Constructor’s trophy this season. The unnamed figure stated, “We can forget about this championship. All that counts now is Max’s fourth title.”

There is still hope for Verstappen though. According to Helmut Marko, adviser at Red Bull, Max was able to identify the car’s issues and weaknesses, and the engineers have set to work to improve the car and make it more competitive. 

Max’s father and former Formula 1 driver, Jos Verstappen, has also been very vocal about the lack of performance of the team. He feels like the changes to the car are coming too late in the season, and that the updates to the car throughout the year did not meet expectations.