2024 Red Bull F1 car launch: 'improvements in all areas' to newly-revealed RB20

Max Verstappen has won the F1 drivers’ championship for the past three years; Red Bull completed the most dominant season in grand prix history in 2023; and now the team has launched its 2024 F1 car, with a “bold design” that will already have rivals poring over the pictures.

And yet this evening’s launch was overshadowed by the sense of disarray behind the scenes. Christian Horner, the talismanic team principal who has led Red Bull since its birth, is under investigation over allegations of “inappropriate behaviour” which he denies. He’s tipped to be at the event, but his entire future at the team is in doubt, pending the findings.

This takes place amid the suggestion of a corporate power struggle, with Horner said to haver fallen out of favour with the new management team leading the Red Bull corporation. It has brought questions over the future of star designer Adrian Newey, just as he is most needed, with a regulation change in 2026 approaching.

Horner admitted that the allegations were a distraction at the launch, but nothing new emerged on that front. Neither did any doubts about Sergio Perez whose loss of form — admittedly in a difficult car to drive — left Verstappen as a one-man-band for much of 2023.

And yet you’d be brave to bet against a team that started last season with such crushing superiority, it could afford to turn its attention to this year’s car early.

“We’ve made some improvements to the car in all areas,” said Adrian Newey at the launch, not least with a horizontal pnel that links the sidepods to the nose, and screens the air intake below.

While McLaren and Mercedes managed to pull closer to the Red Bull pace at the end of last year, test driver and Formula E champion Jake Dennis, has said that the team has “an extremely fast race car again” in 2024 and expects it to triumph once more in the championship — unless Ferrari or Mercedes manages to find “about a second [per lap] overnight.”

Although the team will struggle to replicate its results from 2023, anything could be possible with Max Verstappen in his current form.

 

Red Bull 2024 F1 car live stream

You can watch the live stream of Red Bull’s 2024 F1 car launch at the top of this page.

2023: A season to remember 

In a season of near-perfection, Red Bull’s pace proved too hard to match — resulting in land-slide margins of victory in both the drivers’ and constructors’ titles.

The first signs of success came as early as Bahrain, when Verstappen and Perez converted a front-row lockout into a dominant 1-2 finish. The pair achieved the same result in Saudi Arabia, before the Dutchman took control in Australia and at almost every subsequent round since.

Aside from defeats to Perez in Azerbaijan and to Carlos Sainz in Singapore, there wasn’t a single other blemish on Verstappen’s record — winning ten races in a row from Miami to Monza and scoring 18 grand prix victories in total (a new F1 record).

The dominance of the RB19 allowed Red Bull to wrap up both titles prematurely: securing the constructors’ championship in Japan while Verstappen sealed his third consecutive drivers’ crown in Qatar. In the process, the Milton Keynes marque broke records for the most laps led, the most wins (both in the sprint and grand prix), the most points scored and the largest winning margins in both championships.

 

2024: Hoping for more of the same against tighter opposition

Considering the obvious pace advantage that Red Bull still possessed over the rest of the field at the 2023 season finale in Abu Dhabi, it’s perhaps easy to predict that Verstappen and Perez will be leading the way once again in 2024.

Despite a near-perfect campaign, Red Bull are adamant on improving “all aspects” of its new car in the hope of keeping its winning margin alive, as it expects the trailing field to converge in 2024.

“Nobody stands still,” team boss Christian Horner told Sky Sports F1. “We’ve got a great basis, so it’s more evolution [of the car] than revolution. But I’m sure it’s going to converge a bit next year, so we can’t rest on our laurels.

“They [competitors] are all great teams. McLaren’s form at the back end of the season, Ferrari, Mercedes. Those big teams are going to be coming out all guns blazing next year.”

As well as increased competition from its rivals, Red Bull may also have to cope with more infighting between Verstappen and Perez, as the latter targets a world title-winning run. “That’s the main target,” he told Sky Sports F1. “I already finished second and my main interest is to do one better.”

The pair have clashed on several occassions during their time as team-mates — the most memorable near-miss coming in Austria as the pair battled for a sprint race lead in tricky conditions — but Verstappen has almost always prevailed. Will 2024 tell a different story?

 

Red Bull 2023 F1 driver line-up

Max Verstappen	Sergio Perez

• Verstappen settled at Red Bull until, with a contract until 2028
• Perez’s position on less secure ground, with contract set to expire in 2024
• Liam Lawson expected to remain as reserve driver, with a full-time F1 contract for 2025