What really happened to Red Bull’s rear wing

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Red Bull had to trim the rear wing because they don’t have a spec for Las Vegas


LAS VEGAS.- Slowness just a turn away Red Bull in the first two Free Practices of the Las Vegas Grand Prix 2024 of the Formula 1 It has directly to do with the fact that the cars of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez They had an oversized rear wing that had a lot of wind resistance on the straight, but why not one suitable for the street circuit of USA?

Initially and based on the statements of Helmut Marko, special advisor to Red Bullthe problem was that they had packed the wrong wing, but it sounded almost absurd that a team of Formula 1and not just anyone, the reigning champion of the category, would have made such a childish mistake.

Then, the correct ailerons were said to be on their way to vegasbut it was not correct either, because in reality a special wing for this Grand Prix has never existed and it was a calculated risk that the team took based on the budget and the limitations they have had, first in the wind tunnel and due to the costs of the crashes of the year.

Red Bull believed that the spoiler they chose for vegas would bring them a disadvantage on the long 1.92 kilometer straight, but they did not estimate that it would be 8 tenths with respect to the mercedesthey also believed that it would be compensated with superiority in cornering thanks to the high downforce of its configuration. But this effect was not what they expected.

The biggest problem is with soft tires and one lap times, because in race simulation they are competitive.

The precarious and unusual solution was to manually trim the spoiler. They reduced and gave a different shape to the top of the upper element, with a deeper undulation to emulate, in some way, the smaller spoilers that the other teams have.

The trick seemed to work in FP3, with a whole different setup on the car and Verstappen got closer to half a second, mercedes when he was two seconds away. Czech Perez He was almost a second and a half away and it is expected that his teammate’s configuration will be replicated in his car.