Martin Brundle highlights ‘embarrassing’ advantage Red Bull hope to repeat in 2024

Martin Brundle highlights ‘embarrassing’ advantage Red Bull hope to repeat in 2024

Martin Brundle has described the DRS advantage held by Red Bull in 2023 as “embarrassing” and wants to see the field close up in that regard in the new season.

On the rare occasion a Red Bull car was not at the front of the pack in 2023, it would take little effort for them to soon be back leading given the almighty advantage they had when it came to DRS.

The Miami Grand Prix was a perfect example of this with Max Verstappen able to cruise by even his own team-mate on his way to the first of 10 consecutive wins.

Martin Brundle labels Red Bull DRS advantage ‘embarrassing’

Many fans are hoping the gap between Red Bull and the rest of the grid will close up but one area Brundle particularly wants to see level is DRS.

“We saw in the first half of last year when the Red Bull opened its DRS rear wing, it was just embarrassing, wasn’t it?” Brundle said on the Sky Sports F1 podcast.

“Remember [them] just sailing past like it was in a different formula, different championship. The [rival] teams started to edge some of that back again, so it’s a question of how much for example they will have worked hard on DRS, they’ll have worked hard on efficiency.”

As for the possible contenders, Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren were all teams Brundle picked out.

“I think Ferrari had a decent car [in 2023] and they understood their car towards the end of last year.

“McLaren, as well, I would say Red Bull, obviously, I don’t think we ever really saw Verstappen and Red Bull pushed truly to the limit.

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“Singapore was an outlier but it’s the law of diminishing returns if your car’s working well. How much better can you make it? Others can copy, can learn, can understand and they always concertina with static regulations.

“What did Mercedes say about their car? They had a spice which I’m sure you can see a doctor about. Now they have a reassuring rear end they feel but time will tell and the stopwatch never lies in that respect.

“So I think when they start taking some fuel out [on] day three and the bits have all arrived, we know full well that the launches are all livery launches. The juicy bits still don’t go on the cars.

“So I think that they will be closer. Will they be close enough? They’d better be

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