Red Bull warning as rivals tipped to ‘copy’ and ‘innovate’ their way towards F1 dominant force
Max Verstappen and Red Bull were the ones to beat in 2023.
Martin Brundle believes the history of F1 shows that other teams will begin to close the gap to 2023 championship winners Red Bull.
All but one race saw the RB19 cross the line first in 2023, leading many to worry that 2024 could be another season without a title race but Sky F1 pundit Bundle is hopeful things will be a little closer next time round.
He suggested that F1 has a history of teams spreading out and bunching up and was confident that would be the case over the next few years.
Martin Brundle backs tighter title race in 2024
Such was Red Bull’s dominance in 2023 that they were able to start work on the 2024 car around the summer break – but the question is how much more can they improve?
No doubt they have a head start over their rivals but the older a regulation set becomes, the closer to the maximum teams will be in terms of performance.
“Law of diminishing returns, if your car’s working really well, you’ve got less potential upside, of course,” Brundle said during a Sky F1 Q&A.
“But you just look at it, they turned up in Singapore and even in Abu Dhabi at the last race, it’s not a plug and play perfect racing car. So I’m sure there’s some upside and they’ve had six clear months thinking about it.
“But history tells you in Formula 1 that consistent regulations close the pack, and the pack is already quite close, as we saw with Williams or a Haas popping into the top ten in qualifying quite frequently. So that they can improve that car, but the others should copy, catch up, innovate – yes.”
As for who can challenge Red Bull in 2024, Brundle suggested McLaren will be a contender but hoped it was more than just one team at the top.
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“They have got a great driver line up and the team seem to be in the ascendancy,” Brundle said of McLaren.
“I’m not sure the wind tunnel will really be on stream yet for making a big change but they seem to understand their car, every time they brought an update it really moved it forward, which suggests that all their data is matching up with track performance.
“I just I think for the sake of all of us, and for F1 and even for Red Bull, to be honest, we need not just McLaren, but Ferrari, Aston Martin, Mercedes and everybody to close the gap.
“So fingers and toes crossed the McLaren and all the other teams can do that.”
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