Red Bull RB20 and Monza ‘revelation’. Max Verstappen: “I saw the graphs and understood”. One of the most challenging moments of Max Verstappen's season occurred at Monza.

The ‘Monster’ RB20
One of the most challenging moments of Max Verstappen’s season occurred at Monza. During the Italian GP, the Red Bull driver struggled more than ever to extract performance from his RB20, finishing the Grand Prix in sixth place, a staggering 38 seconds behind the winner, Charles Leclerc. It was a crushing blow that, with Ferrari and McLaren showing significant improvement, cast serious doubts on Verstappen’s chances of defending his championship title by the end of the year. After that race, the Hasselt-born driver was harsh in his comments, describing his car as a “monster” that was impossible to tame.

However, during the Italian weekend, Max Verstappen and the engineers of the Austrian team managed to identify some of the car’s issues and implement corrections that later proved crucial. These adjustments enabled Max to limit Lando Norris‘s comeback in the standings and secure the championship with two races to spare in Las Vegas. The world champion discussed this in an interview with the Dutch newspaper *De Telegraaf*, explaining how analyzing certain graphs helped him and the team identify some of the problems.

Revealing Graphs
“I saw a couple of graphs at one point while we were looking at the data. I noticed some aerodynamic changes in how we entered corners, in the steering, and also in terms of ride heights. It was different compared to the car from the previous year,” Max Verstappen explained. At that moment, by quickly comparing the data with the 2023 car—the most successful in F1 history—came the ‘revelation.’

“I said, ‘Hey, it’s clear that the problem is this and this, right?’ And I felt that was correct. I had never seen those lines, those graphs before. Then I said it was pretty obvious what we needed to work on because the engineers, of course, knew exactly what had been changed compared to last year’s car. At the beginning of last season, we were still winning races convincingly, but even then, I felt the car’s balance wasn’t what I wanted. Back then, though, we still had a big advantage over the other teams, who perhaps hadn’t had a good winter,” the Dutchman concluded.