TECH WEEKLY: How Red Bull's two-year dominance came to a sudden end in 2024
In the last edition of Tech Weekly we discussed how McLaren dramatically overturned Red Bull’s dominance in 2024 from the Miami Grand Prix onwards and how it was done. The advantage of the Red Bull’s more sophisticated aerodynamics – the root of the team’s record-breaking form in the previous two seasons – was more than overcome by McLaren’s mastery of how to apply aero-elasticity to its front wing.
In unblocking the biggest aerodynamic bottleneck of this generation of car, McLaren leapfrogged past the more sophisticated Red Bull in one spectacular move. Red Bull were unable to respond because of the cost cap and other resource implications.
But until then, Red Bull had remained one step ahead of the opposition for more than two seasons. Here, we review how they did it, how that era was brought to an end so suddenly and how that poses an intriguing question for 2025.
Next Up
Related Articles
Who’s driving on Day 3 of the first Bahrain test
What we learned from Day 2 of the first Bahrain test/16x9%20single%20image%20-%202026-02-13T105716.711.webp)
Russell tops Day 3 morning session at Bahrain test/Hadjar%20Bahrain%20testing.webp)
Red Bull progress ‘better than we hoped for’ – Hadjar
HighlightsCatch the action from Day 3 of the first Bahrain test/Vowles%20Bahrain%20testing.webp)
‘Mood has lifted’ at Williams in Bahrain – Vowles