The 2024 Formula 1 season was the longest in the history of the championship, with 24 races spanning across five continents.
Max Verstappen clinched his fourth world championship after a difficult season for Red Bull, after they struggled to replicate their dominance from the 2023 season.
The RB20 evolved from the RB19, one of the most successful cars in F1, but the team encountered development issues midway through the season. This led to rivals McLaren and Ferrari catching up on track, with Lando Norris emerging as Verstappen’s main title contender.
Red Bull traced their problems back to a combination of factors, which can affect the correlation between the wind tunnel and on-track performance. They were largely relying on Verstappen’s outright pace midway through the year, although Jolyon Palmer thinks Red Bull’s problems were ‘overplayed’ given their run of results.
Discussing Red Bull’s chances next year in an interview with GP Fans NL, Tim Coronel explains why he thinks next year is going to be a challenge for the defending champion.
Max Verstappen’s ‘energy was gone’ at the end of last season
It is a testament to the strong season from Verstappen that he managed to only finish outside the top five once during the Qatar GP Sprint race, by which point he had already sealed the title.
Helmut Marko said he was ‘worried’ about Verstappen during Abu Dhabi GP qualifying, after the Dutchman nearly crashed when trying to put in a fast lap. The RB20 is a difficult car to setup, and Coronel thinks this will carry over into next years contender.
“They have already put a lot of energy into the 2026 regulations, and if you look at the regulations you can be smart and spend so much and have so many hours [in wind tunnel]. But I don’t see it going well in the short term, next season,” said Coronel.
“Certainly McLaren has the better car and Ferrari, I think those teams will be in a better position than Red Bull. The only difference will be Max. [But] you saw at the end of the season that Max wasn’t really into it, the energy was gone but motivation could have been a bit better. I don’t think he has that.”
Max Verstappen still showed willingness to win
Despite Coronel’s comments, the final two races in Qatar and Abu Dhabi showed that Verstappen was still trying to do anything to win.
The overnight changes Red Bull made to the RB20 in Qatar effectively transformed their weekend, and reaffirmed why they are the car and driver combination to beat in F1 currently.
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While Verstappen got into a feud with George Russell over comments made after their qualifying incident in Qatar, the Dutchman would go on to use his outright pace to claim victory.
The 2025 title will be one of Verstappen’s most difficult to defend, given how close the field has been on raw pace this year.
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