Why is Red Bull struggling recently?

The last time Max Verstappen won the Formula 1 Grand Prix was about three months ago, and in the last few races, he couldn't even make it to the podium. His teammate, Sergio Peréz, hasn't won a single race this season, with struggles to finish on the podium. The question is simple - what happened to the dynasty of Red Bulls? 

To begin, we have to throw ourselves to the autumn of 2023, when the founder of the Red Bull company, Dietrich Mateschitz, died at age 78. This businessman, standing at the highest point in the hierarchy, had great relationships with the "holy trio" - the team principal, Christian Horner, the main car constructer Adrian Newey, and the director of Red Bull Racing, Helmut Marko. After Dietrich's death, his son Mark Mateschitz stepped up to become the owner of his father's company. Younger Mr. Mateschitz doesn't have the same chemistry with the holy trio as his father did, which leads to less attention for the F1 team. 

The second important aspect of the problem is the father of Max Verstappen and the former F1 driver - Jos Verstappen. From my previous article, you already know about Jos' intentional choleric behavior to support Max in some kind of way. Jos is also a significant person, especially in terms of interviews and other media responsibilities. At the beginning of the season, this Red Bull quartet had a beef made by the circumstances and personalities of all four guys. 

This controversy forced Adrian Newey to move to Aston Martin due to a lack of motivation and made both Jos and Max speculate about Max's transfer to Mercedes. Newey's loss might be significant for the car development in the upcoming seasons, and the results are visible - Red Bull's new upgrades on the car simply don't work. The reason is not a lack of time in the wind tunnel due to exceeding the budget limit in 2021, which might limit Red Bull even in the upcoming season. But can you imagine Christian Horner losing his biggest star and the youngest winner in Formula 1 history? Luckily, it seems that our skirmishes are forgotten at the moment, and the whole team is focused on racing. 

Red Bull might be losing a World Constructors Championship to McLaren. However, Verstappen Junior has a decent chance of winning the World Drivers Championship. Even though McLaren and potentially Ferrari had a faster car outscoring RB19 in the race pace, Verstappen stayed consistent through the season, and even though he might not won a Grand Prix in the last eight races, his closest championship rival Lando Norris trails him by 52 points. The biggest issue, especially McLaren, was a horrendous inconsistency in the strategy decisions. From Zak Brown's perspective, I frankly don't understand why Lando Norris, who's fighting for the championship, let Oscar Piastri by just because the team messed up the strategy. Unfortunately for them, this is just one of the many instances from previous races when they let their rivals win. Norris still has a slight chance of winning the title, but he is not perfect as well as Red Bull. So, let's see what they are going to change about their attitude because there are still six races to go.

Jakub Ondruš 

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Mateschitz</p>

https://racingnews365.com/verstappen-now-feeling-my-red-bull-pain-perez<br>

https://thesportsrush.com/f1-news-lando-norris-apparent-act-of-disrespect-against-max-verstappen-triggers-online-discourse/<br>

The analysis is done by myself.