not good enough too sensitive and also really too slow that was Max ven's damning indictment of the upgraded 20124 Red Bull during a Hungarian Grand Prix weekend in which he failed to feature in the fight for victory and became embroiled in Furious radio exchanges with his own team such a crushing defeat never goes down well with someone as ultra competitive as V stappen of course but this happened on a weekend he declared especially important because of the introduction of Red Bull's biggest upgrade of the season the sten's frustration has been growing for months starting long before Oscar piastri LED home McLaren teammate Lando Norris to take his first Grand Prix Victory there was hope that Red Bull's hungry upgrade centered on a major change to the engine cover Bodywork that is the biggest visual change we've seen to any car in 2024 might push back the tide that has been turning against Red Bull over recent races but that wasn't the case for stappen warned in an interview with Dutch media even before his chaotic race that not everyone in the team is on the same wavelength when it comes to Red Bull's situation and that some people need to wake up a little bit that might seem over the top for a driver who leads the world championship by 76 points and one driving for a team that's still 51 points clear in the Constructor standings too it's also a characterization team boss Christian herner doesn't recognize he says everyone at Red Bull is fully focused on extracting more performance from its car but for sten's warnings are not without Foundation he has been critical of the limitations of the car particularly those presented by the incredibly stiff ride for a long time this wasn't a problem while Rebel had a big performance Advantage as some aerodynamic performance could be traded off without costing it top spot but with Rivals closing in and rebel having to squeeze every last fraction of speed out of the car it means the rb20 is often chasing a very narrow window where it works at its peak one that is sometimes inaccessible at bumpier tracks or those where there's plenty of curb riding such as the hungara ring and while sten's outstanding performances and the Red Bull team's incredible execution track side has kept the scoreboard ticking over they've now gone three races in a row without a victory as ver stappen warned it's going to be a long season given the current Trend he has also understood to expressed concerns to the team that his driver's Championship lead might not be as impregnable as it seems given there are still 11 races to go at the same time Red Bull is also faced with an increasingly potent McLaren team for the first time this season the McLaren MCL 38 was indisputably the strongest car both in qualifying and race trim as for stappen admitted he's at times pushing harder than he was during his all-conquering 2023 season but the lap time simply isn't coming qualifying Illustrated that well even with the advantage of two fresh sets of soft tires V STA and lapped half a tenth slower than Norris given Norris set his pole time on the first run when the track conditions were slightly worse than they were when ven did his best lap that Gap could potentially have been even larger B stappen had the edge at the end of the straights thanks to the outstanding aerodynamic efficiency of the rb20 and also had an edge in the slowest Corners the middle sector which runs from 85 M before the fast turn four left-hander to the run out of the turn 11 right-hander was where McLaren had the decisive Advantage stronger in the medium speed corners and also through the chicane where the Red Bull's poor ride was a hindrance Norris was a tenth and a half quicker through that sector than V stappen watching the onboards of Norris and ven the difference in terms of curb riding was Stark with the McLaren Gliding Over them almost effortlessly compared to the far more reactive Red Bull for stapen briefly split the two McLarens in the race after getting ahead of Norris through turn one however he used the runoff to do so and so was told by his team to seed the place or else risk a penalty that was the beginning of a frustrating race to fifth for aen as anyone listening to his increasingly irritated radio messages will have gathered this built took an extraordinary Crescendo as the race unfolded with vapen complaining repeatedly about Red Bull's strategy undermining his chances and his race engineer janiero lambiasi then refusing to refer the sten's complaints about Lewis Hamilton's defensive driving to the stewards calling that tactic childish the sten's ill-judged lunge on Hamilton into turn one in which the Red Bull locked its front brakes and vaed over the Mercedes looked like the desperate move of a driver losing his cool over a frustrating weekend but V stappen insisted it was Hamilton's car moving to to the right that caused him to lock up in avoidance in any case the steward decided to take no further action following a post-race investigation in which they ruled neither driver was predominantly to blame for the Collision theen was also typically defiant when asked by journalists about the nature of His Radio messages with his engineer the two of them are well known for their abrasive communication style but vapen disagreed with suggestions this was anything out of the ordinary bapen was even punchier when asked to comment on people suggesting he was over frustrated with his comments on the radio and showed disrespect to Red Bull in the way he expressed that frustration saying they can all off but however you feel about ven's conduct in this race there can be no doubting that his Red Bull is looking increasingly tricky to extract performance and results from Red Bull also seemed surprised by how difficult it was for vapen to utilize the car's prodigious StraightLine efficiency to overtake Hamilton's Mercedes And while there were hopes Red Bull's upgrade might improve the tendency of this car to be so sensitive for sten's conclusion was that it felt very similar and that's a major concern given Red Bull is looking increasingly boxed into a corner with this tricky car despite the significant changes introduced at the hungara ring the centerpiece of this latest Red Bull upgrade is the dramatically modified Bodywork only vapen ran this in Hungary simply because Red Bull hadn't produced enough of this part of the package to put it on both cars chief engineer Paul Monahan explained that Red Bull had had pushed hard to introduce the package as soon as possible to ensure the team is at the top of its game for this increasingly tight battle at the front with Mercedes and McLaren in particular but while Sergio Perez who felt more confident in the car than in previous races before coming unstuck when he crashed in q1 missed out on the Bodywork package he did run other parts of the upgrade most significantly the front Wing as well as getting the improved underfloor for stappen first used at silverston the new Bodywork represents the most dramatic upgrade any team has introduced this season in terms of the impact on the visible shape of the car and it's particularly striking because it dispenses with the defining visual characteristic of the 2024 Red Bull by dropping the long cooling cannons running down the shoulders of the engine cover this also allows more of a shrink wrapped engine cover and requires the repositioning of the cooling louvers crucially it also allows a more aggressive downwash ramp to feed the coke bottle area where the Bodywork narrows at the rear of the car this is all about improving the cooling efficiency of the car which is vital for a track like the hungara ring primarily this is about the average speed as the slower you are going the more difficult it is to achieve the necessary cooling but the package also confers advantages in the form of a higher downforce level and Red Bull also has another trick up its sleeve when it comes to the Bodywork specification Formula 1 teams are well used to changing aerodynamic parts to suit circuit characteristics however Red Bull intends to take this a step further by switching between Bodywork designs depending on the nature of each remaining track on the 2024 calendar given how dramatically different the new package is this is an extreme step but one that could pay dividends we'll get an idea of that given the new specification is ideal for high downfalls higher cooling demand tracks and therefore it would be logical to run the old version for the next race at Spar Perez even confirm that was the intention it's a bold strategy for Red Bull and makes a substantial difference to the aerodynamic map of the car it's a big test of the team's simulation capabilities but one there's every chance it can pass given how effective the team is on that score though vapen might disagree given the difficulties with car balance he suffered during the Hungarian Grand Prix there's also the question of whether this will give Red Bull a big enough Pace gain and the evidence from Hungary suggests not Red Bull's challenge is made extra Difficult by the rise of McLaren in particular but also Mercedes Mercedes struggled a little with the high temperatures at times during the hungar Ring Weekend and the fact the main weakness of that car is now as Trackside engineering director Andrew schin has confirmed rear limited tracks even so Mercedes was Stronger at the hungara ring than the results might suggest George Russell's weekend was ruined by a q1 exit caused by a combination of miscommunication and not having sufficient fuel to set a lap time in the best of the conditions Lewis Hamilton also struggled and found the car a little Snappy to drive but recovered strongly to beat the STA and to the podium in the race however Mercedes is likely to be an even stronger proposition at spa as for Ferrari its upgrade problems have taken it out of the equation for now despite a flaw tweak at the hungar ring it was the fourth best of the top four teams but McLaren is the team Red Bull is really worried about and rightly so in the races leading up to the hungara ring McLaren was already chipping away at Red Bull's lead and it took a big chunk out of Red Bull's advantage in Hungary despite bringing no new upgrades this situ ation is not only creating concerns for fapen but also the Red Bull team that's why there's the very real possibility that Perez could be replaced over the August Break by one of Daniel Ricardo Liam Lawson or Yuki Coda as red bull battles to get over the line in the constructor's championship with the situation also likely to get worse for Red Bull before the August break given the stappen might well have to take a power unit grid penalty at Spar thanks to the failure suffered in Canada the pressure is building on f1's hither to dominant force and while there are more upgrades coming up after the summer break the same can also be said for its Rivals and with those Rivals circling both in terms of winds and the very vocal courting of V stappen by Mercedes ven's prediction that it could be a long second half of the Season could very well come true for Red Bull and its star dri