The 2024 Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix got off to a worrying start for Red Bull. Max Verstappen, hoping to capture his fourth straight F1 Drivers’ Championship in Las Vegas, finished fifth in FP1 with teammate Sergio Pérez a few places behind him in P10. Things did not improve in FP2 as both drivers took a step back, with Verstappen down in P17 and Pérez in P19.
Red Bull F1 dealing with a rear wing problem at the Las Vegas Grand Prix
Worry at Red Bull F1 as team using wrong rear wing at Las Vegas Grand Prix
Photo by Song Haiyuan/MB Media/Getty Images
Mark Schofield is a former college quarterback and attorney covering the NFL and F1.
While some of that might be due to different running programs and power unit settings, there is a more worrying sign for Red Bull as qualifying looms in Las Vegas.
The team has the wrong rear wing with them for this weekend and the demands of the Las Vegas Street Circuit.
Speaking with Motorsport following the two practice sessions Red Bull senior advisor Dr. Helmut Marko confirmed that the team has the wrong rear wing in Las Vegas this weekend. “We don’t have another rear wing, a smaller rear wing, as we see it on our competitors. It would be more helpful, for sure,” said Marko.
When asked if the team could have the correct rear wing, with less drag, delivered to the circuit for the weekend Marko stated simply, “[n]o.”
The team is running a low-downforce rear wing, similar to the one they use at Monza, another low-downforce circuit. However the team is still using a bigger rear wing than those competitors are using, hoping to make up the difference in the corners, and in braking zones.
Looking at telemetry data courtesy of F1-Tempo, you can see how the RB20 is lagging behind competitors, particularly on the long straights the Las Vegas Street Circuit has to offer. Lewis Hamilton topped the timing sheets in FP1, and when you overlay Hamilton’s fastest lap with Verstappen’s best effort, you can see the track dominance from Hamilton on the straights:
Perhaps most worrisome for Red Bull is the speed deficit on the long straight, where they were seven kilometers per hour or more behind Mercedes and McLaren. As you can see from this data point, when comparing Verstappen’s best lap to Hamilton’s, at this point, Verstappen is a whole ten km/h behind Hamilton:
For his part, Verstappen pointed to a lack of grip, something all drivers were dealing with on Thursday night. With the track held on the busy Las Vegas streets, the dust level posed problems for all 20 drivers as FP1 began. While grip levels improved over the two sessions, the chilly Las Vegas air posed its own set of problems, as drivers worked to get the tires in the optimum temperature windows.
“Of course, it’s quite unique conditions around here and it’s very cold, but at the end of the day it’s the same for everyone, so we need to try and understand what we’re doing wrong at the moment,” said Verstappen to the official F1 channel.
“I mean, for me it just feels massively tire-related,” added Verstappen. “The balance of the car is not even that wrong, I think, it’s just we have no grip – it’s like driving on ice at the moment.”
Still, there is a long way to go until the checkered flag, and Marko believes the team can find improvements over FP3 and into qualifying.
“Tomorrow is a different day,” said Marko. “You maybe saw it a lot of times. People will be fastest on Friday or Thursday, but it doesn’t mean that they are fast in the race...
“We will, for sure, make a reasonable step.”
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