Red Bull apologises to Max Verstappen for not fixing F1 steering issue earlier

Red Bull made a significant step forward during the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix weekend. Max Verstappen’s fifth place on Sunday does not fully reflect the overall picture, but that result is mainly due to his spin on the opening lap, and the early pit stop that followed.

In terms of pure pace, Red Bull made a much stronger impression than in Japan, where Verstappen did not even make it into Q3.

In Miami, the gap to the front was reduced by more than a second – based on Saturday’s qualifying – despite McLaren and Ferrari also introducing significant upgrade packages in Florida.

It shows that the new parts – including heavily revised sidepods and a new floor – are working, but Verstappen revealed during his Dutch media session that there is another factor at play as well: Red Bull discovered an issue in the steering system and has finally been able to address it.

The four-time world champion added that he had already felt something was wrong from the very first shakedown in Barcelona, which logically raises the question of why Red Bull was not able to implement a solution earlier.

“First, we had to make sure that he had an issue. Then it was about identifying where it was coming from, and that takes a long time. And after that, it was about fixing the problem,” technical director Pierre Wache told Motorsport.com after the Miami race.

Red Bull indicates that the complete steering rack has been replaced, together with multiple “supporting components”, after which the feeling during the team’s filming day in Silverstone was already significantly better.

“I'm sorry that we didn't fix it before,” Wache said. “We tried multiple stuff and it didn't work. Some parts also took a long time to arrive, but I think the engineering team did a very good job to achieve it.”

Pierre Wache, Technical Director Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Asked whether Red Bull only found the true root cause during the April break or already before that, Wache clarified the timeline.

“A little bit before that,” he said. “But the break gave us time to produce the parts, I would say. Otherwise, in Bahrain and Jeddah we would not have had the parts.”

The story behind Red Bull’s version of the Macarena wing

While the change to the steering system was an invisible factor in this weekend’s step forward, Red Bull’s own version of Ferrari’s Macarena wing stood out the most visually.

Red Bull already emphasised on Friday that the concept was not copied from the Scuderia and that its own version works differently, among other things by rotating the wing in the opposite direction.

“I think we started in November. We tried to introduce it in Bahrain, and then in Melbourne. But we had some issues to make it work,” Wache explained. “We tried again in Suzuka, but we were struggling a lot. And now it works. It's a long process to make this type of device happen.”

Red Bull managed to get the overall concept working relatively quickly, but then mainly had to optimise it to comply with all FIA regulations. That is where a lot of time was spent.

“Because the time that you have to open and close it is limited. And it's a longer distance that is not exactly what we used to.

“We also didn't anticipate some issues because it's a new system. Maybe it was our fault, [so there were] things that we had to fix. And after fixing, it takes time on top of the normal development of the car.”