Red Bull failed with the RB19 due to Sergio Perez’s inability to get on top of the all-conquering machine, according to Technical Director Pierre Wache.
From the 22 races held in 2023, Red Bull won 21 and scored 860 championship points. Perez, however, was only able to secure two victories, in rounds two and four in Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan.
In contrast, team-mate Max Verstappen won on 19 occasions, including a record-breaking 10 straight between Miami and Italy en route to setting a new points record of 575.
What has become evident from their time together at Red Bull is that Verstappen and Perez have differing driving styles. The triple World Champion prefers a sharp, on-the-nose turn-in, whilst Perez likes more understeer in his set-up, with the Mexican unable to gel fully with the car.
Perez’s contract is up at the end of the season, with Daniel Ricciardo clear that he wants to reclaim the seat he left in 2018, but Wache feels the team did not get on top of Perez’s problems with the car.
“Developing a fast car is a concept, it doesn’t actually exist,” Wache told Formule 1 magazine.
“A fast car is a car that the driver can get the maximum out of. In that sense, we failed, because only one driver, Max in this case, could drive well in the car.
“That is Max’s talent, that he could get the most out of the car, no matter the circumstances.
“On the other hand, we didn’t clearly understand what Checo needed to push the RB19 to its highest potential.
“But whether the success [was] mainly down to Max or whether it’s the car after all? I think you need both. The more talent the driver has, the better the car performs. Because then the talent and the car come together.
“As you make a car easier to drive, you reduce its potential. Believe me, if I drove this car myself, not only would I be slow, I would crash.
“We did good work, that much is clear. Not only [in 2022], but in pre-season testing, we did everything in our power to deliver with the [RB19].
“We worked hard, we did our best, our duty if you will, but I had expected the other teams to be a lot closer to us than they ended up being.
“We didn’t discover a miracle cure, we just developed a good car, as was expected of us. I think that if you see how some teams have recovered throughout the season, they didn’t get the most out of the regulations. That did surprise me.”
