At the Spanish Grand Prix, reigning world champion Max Verstappen had to abort his last lap of Q3 due to a DRS problem, losing his chances of taking pole position.
Although Red Bull believed they had found a quick solution between Saturday and Sunday, the problem again affected the Dutchman during the race, complicating his chances of victory before Charles Leclerc retired while leading with a wide advantage.
Ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix in Monte Carlo, Red Bull engineers worked to fix the problem once and for all and, according to chief engineer Monaghan , have learned their “painful lessons” and found a permanent solution.
“Our problem with the DRS was self-inflicted, I think, if we’re honest, we’ve learned one of our painful lessons,” said Monaghan , suggesting that Red Bull may have gone too far in its effort to reduce the RB18’s overweight to a minimum.
“There is some relief after the work that very smart people did with the research and all the checks required. They did a phenomenal job in a very short period of time. The challenge has changed from circuit to circuit, the waiting time changes, opening speed changes, conditions change, everything changes.”
“I’m sure, we learned a lot after the weekend in Spain. I guess the most irritating part is the lesson we received, so yes, we accept it and move on,” he added.
Sergio Pérez, at the wheel of his Red Bull Racing RB18
While the issue seemed resolved in Monaco, where the DRS flap suffered no problems at lower than usual airspeed, Baku will be a completely different challenge with a top speed of over 340km/h on its 2-straight. 2 kilometers long.
Monaghan acknowledged that this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix will be the ultimate test of whether Red Bull can lower its guard on the matter.
“Baku will confront us with slightly different problems,” he said. “The speed at which you open [the DRS] is 160 km/h in Monaco, in Baku it will be 300 km/h. So it’s not really about the weight on the moving wing, it’s about lifting it against its own downforce.
“I think it would be silly to rest on our laurels. We know what we did wrong. It was our job to fix it, so now it seems that we are fine,” he concluded.
