Adrian Newey on Red Bull's problems and the graund effect

      Former technical director of Red Bull Adrian Newey in an interview with Auto Motor und Sport admitted that the problems with the car were obvious to him even before leaving the team... Adrian Newey: "Part of the loss of competitiveness of Red Bull is due to the progress of McLaren and Ferrari, but from what I saw, at the end of 2023 and in 2024 the car became more and more difficult to manage. Max coped with it, and Perez could not, so already in 2023 we saw a serious difference between them. This continued in the first half of the 24th, but the car was still fast enough to win. I was seriously concerned about it, but many in the team were not worried at all. I'm not criticizing them, but perhaps because of the lack of experience they continued in the same direction, and the problem became more and more acute, so that in the end even Max became difficult to control the car. The team tried to compensate for this with settings, but settings can to some extent hide the problem, but not solve it.Difficulties in other teams? Ground-effect cars that don't have sealed "skirts" like the older cars will always be susceptible to aerodynamic instability. When you create a low-pressure area under the underbody, there are bound to be leaks, increasingly negatively impacting efficiency as you get closer and closer to the ground. The ground effect is a good tool to create downforce, but just as important is stability - it's a complex problem."