Red Bull Technical Director Pierre Wache has conceded the team “expected more” with its 2024 Formula 1 car, despite anticipating there would be closer competition.
Red Bull commenced the current campaign appearing to have maintained the dominance last season that saw it storm to an unprecedented 21 victories in 22 rounds.
Max Verstappen surged unopposed to four wins in the opening five events as team-mate Sergio Perez trailed him home in second in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Japan.
However, Red Bull has since come under immense pressure as McLaren has won several races, while Mercedes has emerged as a renewed threat over recent rounds.
But while it retains a lead in both championships with seven victories in 14 rounds, Wache has admitted Red Bull hasn’t achieved its ambitions with its latest package.
Asked whether the Austrian outfit’s 2024 challenger has lived up to expectations, Wache told Motorsport.com’s Dutch website: “I would say not quite.
“We have undoubtedly improved the car compared to last year, although in some areas we have not quite delivered as we expected.
“Especially in the fast corners, we expected something more than what we have now.
“Without looking at the competition, so purely based on our own tools, we expected something more.”
Wache has insisted Red Bull has improved on the all-conquering RB18 in slow-speed corners, but with the caveat that it has lost relative high-speed competitiveness.
Meanwhile, the Frenchman also highlighted kerb riding as a core weakness embedded in the RB20, which was accentuated when it tackled Monaco earlier this term.
“I don’t know if we have a strong point yet!” he quipped.
“I think we have improved a lot in medium-speed and slow corners compared to last year.
“We are now – relatively speaking compared to the competition – slightly weaker in fast corners than last year. Last year we were very good in that respect.
“Finally, we are still clearly weak over the kerbs, but that was also the case last year. With that, we have not made the expected step.”
Red Bull introduced a comprehensive update package at the Hungarian Grand Prix which was unable to inspire the team to get back on terms with McLaren’s MCL38.
Wache believes that Red Bull not making the inroads desired with mid-season development can be attributed to receiving less wind tunnel testing time than its rivals.
“I think some aspects can be linked to the correlation,” he explained.
“We use a relatively old wind tunnel and on top of that, we have less wind tunnel time because of our position in the championship.
“And it is also because we are in the third year of the current regulations.”
However, Wache has quashed the notion that Red Bull ended up becoming complacent as he cited that the squad expected to receive a challenge earlier than it has.
“To be honest, we expected the competition before,” he proclaimed. “At the beginning of 2022 we didn’t have the fastest car, Ferrari had the fastest car then.
“Then we expected a lot of opposition in 2023, but that didn’t happen.
“In 2024, we also expected the others from the first race, because of course the performance you can find under the same rules is limited.
“After a delay of four or five races, they still came, but to be honest, we expected that from the beginning.”
