HALF TERM REPORT: Red Bull – Can the champions fend off a growing group of challengers as big names get set to leave?

Red Bull started the 2024 season in style by taking five wins from the opening seven races, but that’s been reduced to just two in the last seven as McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes all put pressure on the reigning world champions, who will soon lose stalwarts Adrian Newey and Jonathan Wheatley from their ranks. Here’s a review of the team’s latest title defence with 14 of 24 scheduled races completed…

• Read all the 2024 half term reports here

Best finish

Max Verstappen – 1st in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Japan, China, Imola, Canada and Spain

Amid plenty of noise off the track, Red Bull’s start to 2024 was almost faultless on it, with Max Verstappen picking up where he left off at the end of last year and leaving most of his rivals fearing a relatively trouble-free run to what would be a fourth successive title.

Indeed, the Dutchman stamped his authority over the first half of the opening half, winning five times in seven races and having a case for that tally being even bigger – a brake failure in Australia and an ill-timed Safety Car period in Miami costing him shots at further glory.

However, amid a more challenging run that started in Monaco, which highlighted Red Bull’s ongoing weakness at tight, twisty tracks, Verstappen has picked up ‘only’ two more wins, thanks to McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes all becoming genuine threats at the sharp end.

Qualifying head-to-head

Verstappen 14-0 Perez

In addition to the season being a tale of two halves for Red Bull and their RB20, drivers Verstappen and Sergio Perez have experienced dramatically different fortunes so far – the reigning world champion utterly dominating when it comes to the head-to-heads.

In qualifying, Perez has not had a look in across the 11 standard and three Sprint weekends held so far, with his best result of second on the grid (achieved three times) comparing to the eight pole positions team mate Verstappen has racked up.

READ MORE: Red Bull make decision on Perez’s future and RB driver line-up

A particularly torrid sequence since Imola has also seen Perez drop out of the running in either Q1 or Q2 during six out of eight qualifying sessions, forcing the Mexican – as was so often the case in 2023 – into damage limitation mode and recovery drives on Sundays.

Race head-to-head

Verstappen 13-1 Perez

It’s not much better for Perez when it comes to race results, having beaten Verstappen to the chequered flag just once up to this point – when the latter suffered that aforementioned technical failure at the Australian Grand Prix and had to retire from proceedings.

Perez’s best results came in the first five races of the campaign, when he scored a trio of second-place finishes and another podium, which earned him a contract extension for 2025 and beyond, but he has otherwise been unable to get near seven-time race winner Verstappen.

Best moment

As mentioned above, Red Bull’s on-track start to 2024 made a huge statement when Verstappen claimed the fifth ‘grand slam’ – taking pole position, setting the fastest lap, leading every lap and ultimately winning – of his career in Bahrain and Perez backed him up for a one-two.

But of the seven wins achieved by the team so far, arguably the most impressive came in Imola, where Verstappen could barely keep his car on the track on Friday but sensationally recovered to claim pole and beat McLaren rival Lando Norris to the flag in a nail-biting finish.

EXCLUSIVE: From the ‘big influence’ to the land speed record setter – F1 design guru Newey reveals his favourite cars of all time

Worst moment

While there have been some tough weekends to navigate amid problems with the RB20 (take frustrations boiling over for Verstappen in Hungary, where he lit up the airwaves) and dramatic moments to bounce back from (take Verstappen’s late-race clash with Norris in Austria), much worse for Red Bull is that they will soon lose two key figures.

Not only Chief Technical Officer Adrian Newey (who is set to leave in early 2025), but also Sporting Director Jonathan Wheatley (who is to depart at the end of the year to become Audi’s team boss) will be on the move after almost two decades of valuable service at Red Bull.

Team Principal Christian Horner has insisted that there is plenty of strength in depth across the organisation, but Red Bull would no doubt prefer to be holding onto a pair of loyal servants who have contributed so heavily to their many race wins and titles over the years.

Going forward

With their 2022 and 2023 dominance a thing of the past, Red Bull now have a few dilemmas to ponder: an RB20 that some feel has slightly lost its way, a driver in Perez who desperately needs to rediscover his form, and a host of rivals who are piling the pressure on.

Just three races ago, the team’s championship lead stood at 71 points, but with only Verstappen regularly scoring well, that is down to 42 – McLaren (212 points) and Mercedes (187) both amassing more than Red Bull’s tally of 140 over the last seven rounds.

READ MORE: Domenicali confident that ‘action and sporting drama’ will continue in F1 as he looks ahead to sport’s future

“We know we have a bit of work to do, we want to do better and we’ll see what we can do,” were the final pre-break comments from Verstappen, who does at least hold a slightly more comfortable 78-point advantage over Norris in the drivers’ standings.

It’s clear that Red Bull are facing their biggest challenge since F1’s latest ground-effect era began, and only time will tell if they can find the answers to those aforementioned question marks across the crucial 10-race run-in that starts on Verstappen’s home soil.