Red Bull open up on make-or-break Hungary upgrade amid clear Max Verstappen demand

Red Bull’s chief engineer Paul Monaghan believes the team can extract more pace from the RB20, as a major upgrade package has been rolled out.

With Red Bull having been caught by rival teams through the second quarter of the 2024 championship, the World Champions have rolled out a significant upgrade package for the RB20 in Hungary.

Paul Monaghan explains changes made to Red Bull RB20

The FIA confirmed the tweaked parts on Friday morning, as submitted by the team, with chief engineer Paul Monaghan revealing what has been changed on the RB20 when he spoke to media ahead of first practice.

“There are some subtle geometry changes on the front wing, a little bit on the front suspension, and the sidepods,” he said.

“The floor edge is unchanged, and there’s a little bit of work around the rear wheel bodywork. We will see, won’t we, because it doesn’t matter what it looks like!”

On Thursday, Max Verstappen had revealed his hopes that Red Bull can unlock more performance from the RB20 after enjoying the “natural” feel of the car at the start of the year – a feeling that has slipped away as the team has had to be more knife-edge with its configurations in a bid to stay ahead of the likes of McLaren and Mercedes have closed the gap.

“I think it’s just the way we set up the car, maybe also what we get back from the simulator, all these kinds of things need to be probably a bit better,” he said, when asked about how things had changed through the second quarter of the season.

“Plus we just need more performance because, naturally, if you have a car that has better performance, it becomes a better car to drive as well because you don’t need to push it over or close to the limit.

“If you look at it, realistically, other teams have made bigger steps. That’s very clear. But I know that my team is pushing as hard as they can to find performance.”

Red Bull has split car configuration for the Hungarian weekend, with Sergio Perez running the older-spec parts while Verstappen goes hell for leather with the upgraded components – the factory has managed to get the parts manufactured and ready for the car earlier than initially expected as they had been ear-marked for after the summer break.

Asked about how demanding Verstappen has been in his feedback towards the team in recent races, Monaghan answered matter-of-factly: “He wants to win the race, I daresay, which really we’ll find out on Sunday afternoon.

“So we’ve done a lot of work in the last few months to try and see if we can extract a bit more from it. We think we’ve got some ways to do that. We will find out.”

But while Verstappen has said the feeling he’s had from the RB20 has slipped away somewhat as the season has progressed, Monaghan said Red Bull are still happy the RB20 is a strong all-rounder and that both Verstappen and Perez have the tools to be able to bring home strong results.

“The opposition, everyone is getting a bit closer – McLaren and Mercedes are similar, quicker, slightly slower than us depending on circumstance,” he said.

“So the strengths of the car as they were, it’s still a well-balanced car and it achieves lap time on most types of circuits.

“Max is typically demanding of us, I think he places the same against himself. With Checo [Perez], we’re doing all that we can to help him. There’s no doubt about that, he’s won races with us. So we just need to help him recover his confidence and belief.

“I’m sure he can fly again. We’re all part of the same team, and we want the best for everyone in it. We will do our utmost to give them what they need.

“In terms of their feedback, good, constructive, and helpful. It’s never negative, it’s always constructive criticism, just take it on the chin and move on.”

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Red Bull’s technical director Pierre Wache, appearing in Friday’s press conference, said the first display of seeing the car on track in the practice session had not set off any alarm bells as Verstappen finished second having set his best time on aging soft tyres.

“I think it is a long process to learn about the package, for sure,” he said.

“FP1 should not be enough to make a conclusion but we’ve learned that it is going in the right direction at the moment – we didn’t see any black flags on the package. That is already a good aspect and we will continue to learn.”

Asked about how Red Bull is approaching the theoretical limit of the current regulations in the third year of the rules, Wache dismissed the notion that the team is bouncing off the theoretical glass ceiling of the rulebook.

“We still have a capacity to develop the car, otherwise, we would not bring the update,” he said.

“Clearly, the fact that others are closer and closer, it’s a big aspect that we are pushing even more to bring updates quicker.

“The performance is not only coming from the overall downforce gain, it is also coming from how the driver is able to extract it, and how it affects the balance. We are pushing also in this area. That is a big part of it and we still have some room for improvement in this aspect.”

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