The Red Bull empire crumbles as Verstappen touches greatness

In many ways, Red Bull had a 2024 F1 season to forget, but as team principal Christian Horner's great adversary, Toto Wolff, says: "You learn the most when you are losing."

When the chapter closes for good on this year's campaign, Red Bull will - or at least should - have learned significant lessons over what went wrong and what it must to do prevent its hardship repeating. 

It was a season of two, unequal halves. This presented itself in multiple fashions: the dominant start to the year that made way for a far less convincing final three quarters; flipped and contrasted against the backdrop of a team supposedly at war with itself, one that pulled back together when the going got tough; and the brutally stark disparity between its two drivers, Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez.

In reality, and fairness, the infighting and internal politics that overshadowed the only positive part of the season on the track was but a footnote to the campaign at large - and ill-placed in a season review.

Adrian Newey announcing he would depart for pastures new was - and will continue to be - a blow for the team. However, that difficulty will breed opportunity and the chance for the Milton Keynes outfit to reinvent itself.

2024 showed Red Bull is not infallible and continued success is hard to attain; all empires must fall. It is what it does next that will matter most. So, in many ways, the six-time constructors' champions may look back fondly on a season in which it ultimately faltered.

And, through the relative darkness, there have been considerable bright points to the year. Verstappen's fourth drivers' title was arguably his best yet, and shared adversity strengthens bonds. The constructors' crown might have been temporarily lost, but the Dutchman's unwavering commitment might have been gained in the process.

Revolution over evolution

The intrigue of Red Bull's campaign started at the unveiling of the RB20, a car radically different from its omnipotent predecessor, the RB19, which won 21 of 22 grand prix the year before.

It was a bold, ambitious step to take, and one borne from knowing it was facing diminishing returns with the previous concept, despite enjoying a healthy performance advantage over the chasing pack.

However, Red Bull's revolution proved to be a wrong turn, when evolution evidently would have sufficed, as shown by McLaren. The Woking team took the central tenets of the design philosophy and developed it further, more effectively, and into the constructors' winning car of 2024.

What makes the RB20 so difficult to assess is the juxtaposition between Verstappen and Perez from the Miami Grand Prix onwards.

It proved to be the critical juncture of the season. The compound effect of Red Bull's competition simultaneously making drastic performance gains whilst the RB20 began to struggle meant that only Verstappen's brilliance could carry it to further victories in Imola, Canada and Spain before its 10-round winless run.

Whilst it remains challenging to truly reconcile just how good - or bad - the RB20 was, there were notable and significant low points through that lean spell, one that again was only ended by the Dutchman's enduring talent.

The Monaco Grand Prix underlined an inherent weakness within Red Bull's cars: in inability to handle bumps and kerbs, something that had laid dormant for much of the past seasons amid the team's crushing dominance.

As Red Bull attempted to develop-out those issues, it established more sinister problems with the RB20. It became increasingly unbalanced between front and rear. This came to a head at the Italian Grand Prix, where Verstappen called the car a "monster".

Crucially, however, the weekend at Monza provided much-needed answers and laid the foundations for a competitive enough run-in to the year, punctuated by two mightily impressive victories in Brazil and Qatar.

Where Red Bull goes from here for the final season of the current regulation cycle remains to be seen, but the car issues that plagued its campaign are inescapably interlinked with the imbalance its driver pairing also suffered.

It is something that is caused by the intended characteristics of its cars and was exacerbated this year by the specific fragility and peculiarity of the RB20's idiosyncrasies.

The great divide

Not since Michael Schumacher's first drivers' championship in 1994 has the team-mate of the title winner fared worse than Perez did last term.

It was a form book that cost him his seat and likely his F1 career, not to mention losing Red Bull the constructors' crown.

There is a multitude of ways to cut the numbers, like the fact Perez scored a mere 21 points in the final 10 rounds of the year compared to Verstappen's 160, having been granted stay of dismissal over the summer, or how he only scored 49 of his 152 points after the sixth grand prix of 24 for the year.

At times, the Dutchman was outscoring the 34-year-old at a 10-to-1 ratio. There is no doubt that Verstappen's heroics amplified Perez's struggles, but the Mexican's shaky 2023 form should have been enough to convince Red Bull pull the plug, not attempt the stave off his decline with a contract extension that will now not be honoured.

There is so much that could be said about the sad end to Perez's Red Bull tenure that, perhaps, less is more. Like many that have come before him, he ultimately could not live with the relentless, unwavering, metronomic brilliance of Verstappen - who has only gotten better over the course of the year.

The 27-year-old's speed and consistency has been evident for some time, but his ability to maximise results and conjure something from nothing has not. Over the course of the campaign, Verstappen evolved; he matured into undeniably the most complete driver of his generation.

Whilst he has some way to go if he is to match the achievements of Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton, it is hard to know whether either could have won the drivers' title in the RB20.

Understandably, to many, his fourth crown is up there with - if not having surpassed - his maiden title, when he went toe-to-toe with and prevailed in a titanic championship fight against the British driver.

The four victories in the opening five rounds of the year speak for themselves, they were claimed much in the same vein as his 19 in 2023, but the subsequent five were hard-fought, gritty and at times outrageous.

Given the conditions those were taken in, they are perhaps the clearest sign Verstappen touched greatness in pursuit of his fourth championship.

However, despite those improbable and audacious victories, it is the considered and strategic way in which he managed the campaign that delivered him the crown.

In securing a fourth-consecutive title, the Dutchman has etched his name into the pantheon F1's best. He sits alongside the likes of Juan Manuel Fangio, Sebastian Vettel and Hamilton. Next season, he has the chance match Schumacher's five in a row.