Bigger culprit than Sergio Perez found by Ralf Schumacher for Red Bull’s troubles

Amidst speculative reports Adrian Newey was not happy with Red Bull’s development path, Ralf Schumacher has declared his “successor” Pierre Waché as not been “able to close” the gap.

19 years after joining Red Bull to form the most formidable partnership F1 has ever seen, one that included seven Drivers’ titles and six Constructors’ crowns, Red Bull announced in May that this would be Adrian Newey’s final season as the team’s technical guru.

Ralf Schumacher: The successor has not been able to close this gap

Set to leave in the first quarter of 2025, the design guru was relegated to working on the Red Bull RB17 hypercar with a bit of F1 2024 action in play.

For the most part though, 2024 was entrusted to Waché.

But with Red Bull losing ground in the development war to McLaren and even Mercedes, having copied some parts of the latter’s car, Italian website Formu1a.uno claimed part of the Newey/Red Bull break-up related to the Brit’s concerns over Red Bull’s path forward.

This, reportedly, led to Red Bull taking a step away from the Mercedes focus with their 2024 upgrades in Hungary only to backtrack on some of those parts in Spa.

After Max Verstappen declared his RB20’s Hungaroring updates were “not good enough”, the team rolled back on the engine cover and other parts said to be track specific in Spa.

There Verstappen was P1 in qualifying by almost six-tenths of a second before an engine grid penalty in the grand prix. He nonetheless recovered from P11 to P4.

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“It started at the beginning of the season,” former F1 driver turned Sky pundit Schumacher said of Red Bull’s form. “One of the most important men left the team and I believe that the successor has not been able to close this gap yet.

“He has to prove it when you look at the car.

“A few things have changed, the car is harder to drive. Both drivers are finding it harder, including Max Verstappen.

“Red Bull have to come up with something. The wings are not that big at the moment.”

Since Red Bull’s last win in Spain, the team’s deficit to McLaren has been reduced from 330-227 to 408 to 366.

Their gap to Mercedes, although still P4, has dropped to 142 points with the Brackley squad winning three of the last four races. Red Bull recorded just one podium result in those four races.

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