Has Red Bull found the smoking gun for its RB20 problems?

Red Bull is pretty open that it needs to quickly turn around the performance of its RB20 if it is to avoid losing both Formula 1 championships this year.

But saying what it wants is one thing, doing it is another – especially because it does not yet have a clear explanation on what has gone wrong.

We can forget wild conspiracy theories about the FIA asking for devices to be removed from its car. Instead, Red Bull’s problems are all of its own making.

While not definitive yet about what has happened, there was a fascinating hint from team boss Christian Horner after the Italian GP about a potential trigger for its woes.

Speaking about the balance problems that are hurting the car, Horner said: “It's disconnected front and rear. We can see that.

“Our wind tunnel doesn't say that, but the track says that. So it's getting on top of that, because obviously when you have that, it means you can't trust your tools. Then you have to go back to track data and previous experience.”

So could a wind tunnel problem – something that may only have come to light in recent weeks – be the smoking gun behind its troubles?

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20 (Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool)

In a bid to find out, let’s try and unravel where it all went wrong for the team and take a look at how it has been attempting to sort things out.

In terms of results and car behaviour, it seems that the Miami Grand Prix was the turning point. This was not only the case for Red Bull, but also those chasing it, as McLaren unveiled its first big update of the season, which catapulted it to victory and gave it a much more usable platform at each event.

Meanwhile, Mercedes joined the fray following its own larger update package that arrived in Monaco.

Ferrari was in and around the front of the pack until around this time too, before its troubles in Canada and then the difficulties caused by the return of high-speed bouncing from its Spanish GP floor. This was another example of a team finding out its simulation tools were saying one thing and the real car saying another.

Red Bull has obviously become aware of the possibility of a wind tunnel correlation issue and, over the course of the last few races, has been testing out numerous parts from its update archive in order to find a benign solution that did not sacrifice too much performance.

Allied to working through its issues, Red Bull has also been trying to improve the RB20 – which has resulted in an almost relentless development programme with updates introduced at every race apart from Austria and Belgium.

Glancing through the timeline of updates since Miami, we can see how much of the RB20 has been changed during that period, and how much of its programme has been split between its long-term goals and short-term aims.

Red Bull RB20 front wing comparison (Photo by: Uncredited)

Race	Reason for update	Part	Explanation
Miami	Performance	Edge wing support brackets	Removed metal support for the edge wing (weight/flex)
Imola	Performance	Front wing	Endplate shape, chord length of all flaps, inboard sections beside nose.
	Performance	Nose	To match aforementioned front wing changes. Also renewed camera mounting positions
	Performance	Floor and Edge wing	Upper floor section ahead of the edge wing optimised, whilst shedding strakes in the edge repositioned in the scrolled section
	Circuit specific	Rear brake duct	Reprofiled the exit duct geometry for a given Intake, which allied the adjacent winglets to be optimised
Monaco	Circuit specific	Front brake duct	Inlet enlarged to cater for the low speed conditions
	Circuit specific	Top wishbone fairing	Notch made in fairing to allow for additional steering lock
	Circuit specific	Beam and rear wings	Increased downforce configuration
Canada	Circuit specific	Front brake duct	Enlarged cooling exit - wider and taller
	Circuit specific	Rear wing	New flap geometry for the given downforce level

Red Bull RB20 sidepod bodywork & inlet comparison (Photo by: Uncredited)

Race	Reason for update	Part	Explanation
Spain	Performance	Sidepods	Bodywork and inlet size and shape altered to give more range for the upcoming races.
	Performance	Floor	Geometry alongside the sidepod altered to work in unison with one another.
	Performance	Beam and rear wing	Lower quarter of the endplates widened to take up more space in the allowable box region, with the beam wing widened as a consequence.
Austria	N/A	N/A	No updates
Great Britain	Performance	Floor and edge wing	Reprofiling of the floor around the SIS housing, with the edge wing altered to take advantage.

Race	Reason for update	Part	Explanation
Hungary	Performance	Front wing	All four flaps reconfigured to increase load
	Performance	Lower wishbone fairing	In conjunction with the revised front wing, the wishbone fairing has been altered to improve flow downstream.
	Performance	Engine cover and Halo	Tighter engine cover, without the high shoulders, which also required new upper inlets beneath the airbox to accommodate for their loss between the halo and airbox. Halo fairings also adjusted to accommodate for the change in engine cover bodywork.
	Performance	Rear brake duct	Change to the end fence geometry to improve flow into and around the assembly.
Belgium	N/A	N/A	No updates
Netherlands	Performance	Halo winglets and wing mirror stays	The aerodynamic furniture surrounding structures is often used as a means to further influence flow downstream and thus need to be changed inline with other changes that occurred a few races earlier.
	Circuit specific	Rear cooling outlet	Smaller rear cooling bodywork for the tighter engine cover introduced at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Race	Reason for update	Part	Explanation
Italy	Circuit specific	Front wing	Shorter chord flaps to reduce drag
	Circuit specific	Rear wing	Trimmed trailing edge of the upper flap to reduce drag

The scale of changes makes it clear that, if it is one component that has triggered its wrong turn, it is going to be quite hard to work out what it is.

For Red Bull, this appears to be new territory too, as it has not really faced the issues that its rivals have in the past three seasons. Its development hit rate has always been relatively good, yielding approximately what was expected.

This means that now, not only does it have to learn how to deal with the current issue, but it also needs to understand why it happened, so that it doesn’t happen again in the future.

Key now is working out which of its tools is reliable and can be trusted.

As Horner said: “It's not unusual that when something's not working on the car, you end up with different readings from your simulation tools, and they don't converge. Then you get three sets of data: you get CFD, you get wind tunnel and you get track.

“Obviously the one that really counts is the track data, but to develop it, it's like telling the time with three different watches, you've got to focus on the tool that's going to give you the most valuable input, and of course, the track data is the most reliable.”

Christian Horner, Team Principal, Red Bull Racing (Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images)

The big question is how long will it take Red Bull to find the answers to its issues and how much development work that has been done, or is under way at its factory, will need to be ditched because of it.

Like others that have been in a similar situation, the consequences of spending time working through this can be severe.

If a team devotes effort to gathering data from old parts to hunt down problems, it means its focus is not on delivering improvements that make it quicker.

So, if you also have rivals who are on an upward trajectory, the performance disparity between you and them can become quick big.

This is development latency that isn’t visible, but can be altogether damaging not only for the remainder of this campaign but can also have implications going forward.

Another factor that has not gathered much attention is that F1 has been through a portion of the calendar where Pirelli has increased the minimum tyre pressures to match the load characteristics of the circuits being visited.

This can also push a car further away from its operating window, be it mechanically or aerodynamically, with both obviously also intrinsically linked with one another too.