While Red Bull have struggled since the middle of the 2024 Formula 1 season, they just about did enough to ensure a fourth consecutive drivers’ championship.
Max Verstappen produced performances of the level that no one on the grid could match and held on even when under extreme pressure.
McLaren and Lando Norris put in an incredible effort to outdevelop them, but costly errors mean that Formula 1 goes without a title finale for a third straight year.
It’s not what fans will have wanted, but Red Bull may not have been in this position had they not fixed a problem that they encountered earlier on in the season.
Red Bull suffered ‘wake-up call’ at the Italian Grand Prix
One of Red Bull’s worst performances of the season came at the Italian Grand Prix, where they were way off the pace all weekend and poor in the speed traps.
At that stage, it looked as if the door was wide open for Norris to chase Verstappen down for the drivers’ championship.
However, the Milton Keynes-based outfit managed to bounce back and recovered so well that they have secured the title with two races to spare.
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They look set to relinquish the constructors’ trophy, but they have at least salvaged something from 2024, which was headed in a bad direction as revealed by Pierre Wache.
“The Italian GP in particular was a real wake-up call,” Wache told media at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
“We ran into a fundamental problem there that we hadn’t seen before. We simply had far too little downforce.”
Does the past suggest that Red Bull can win again?
Looking at other periods of dominance, there’s a bit of a strange pattern and no standout correlation that suggests Red Bull will or won’t win again.
Interestingly, during the 21st century, Ferrari were most dominant in the final year of technical regulations in 2004, Red Bull with Sebastian Vettel were too in 2013, but Mercedes weren’t in 2021.
What can be drawn from that is without a major rule change, none of them dropped out of contention – so expect Verstappen to be in the mix again next year.
READ MORE: Max Verstappen makes ‘fastest car’ joke with McLaren boss Zak Brown after winning the 2024 F1 title
Question marks remain over who his teammate will be after another poor weekend from Sergio Perez, as they will need a dependable driver to enjoy constructors’ success again in the future.
Whoever it is, it won’t scare the Dutchman, and they will be hoping that they can secure even more victories than they did this year.
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