Red Bull clears air about ‘forgotten’ rear wing for the Las Vegas Grand Prix

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has cleared up rumors that his team forgot to include the intended low-downforce rear wing intended for street circuits such as the one in Las Vegas. After the second free practice, speculation surfaced that Red Bull had forgotten the low downforce rear wing and therefore ran the car on the wrong wing.

The reports have likely spread due to Red Bull’s poor performance in both free practice sessions, with Max Verstappen finishing P17 in FP2. The RB20 F1 car was significantly slower on the long straight, by up to 7 km/h, compared to competing cars.

Red Bull senior advisor Helmut Marko also revealed yesterday that Red Bull did not have a smaller rear wing than those of rival cars, hinting at a challenging weekend ahead. In the meantime, Horner decided to elaborate on the situation further. Horner made it clear to Sky Sports F1 that the team had not forgotten the rear wing, as reported by RacingNews365:

‘I don’t know exactly where it comes from.

“We don’t have a specifically designed wing for very low downforce, which may be the case here and in Monza.

‘You have to choose the money involved within the cost ceiling and what you spend it on.

“With the wing we have, you ultimately have to trim the wings to get top speed, and that’s what a lot of teams have done.

“But we haven’t forgotten our rear wing.”

Highlighting the contrast in FP3, Verstappen initially complained of a severe lack of grip, even warning of a possible crash, before experiencing a notable performance boost after switching to soft tyres. Horner added:

“We did a long run at the beginning and I think we probably damaged the tires a little bit when the track was a bit messy, and then everything looks terrible.

“We then moved on to the soft tire and the car was in a much better window and you could hear Max was a lot happier with it.

“If you are six seconds behind during a race and you are expected to complete a lap, then that is very difficult. It shows how skilled Max is. It’s a different formula to go six seconds per lap faster, so there were some encouraging signs.”

According to Horner, the initial challenge likely stemmed from a dirty track being left open to traffic before the session started, leaving him expecting the street circuit to be left in a less than ideal condition leading up to the Las Vegas Grand. Price. He said:

“They open up the track and it gets dirty over the course of the day, so at the start of the race the track could be in quite a dirty state.”