Red Bull might soon reignite discussions around the front wing designs seen on the McLaren and Mercedes cars, as their once-dominant team continues to slip further down the F1 standings.
With Lando Norris starting from pole position at Monza and Max Verstappen only in seventh, the McLaren driver could reduce the 70-point deficit to the championship leader by as many as 20 points after Sunday's race.
"If this is about the championship, then I'm not going to answer the question," snapped Norris when a reporter for Viaplay probed him after qualifying.
"That's a fact," he acknowledged regarding the hypothetical points scenario for the upcoming Italian GP, "but the race still has to be run, so I haven't made up any points yet."
The whole Formula 1 community, including Red Bull, is scratching their heads over what has recently gone awry for the team.
McLaren's CEO Zak Brown has his own ideas.
"A lot has happened there," he commented to De Telegraaf. "With Rob Marshall, Adrian Newey and Jonathan Wheatley, they've lost a lot of experience and talent in a short space of time. You can't tell me that hasn't had an impact," Brown emphasized.
"Also, when you look at the morale of the staff, there may be more people who also want to leave. Looking at Red Bull from the outside, it seems like a disrupted place."
"Christian Horner and Helmut Marko sometimes say completely opposite things in the media, while Andrea Stella and I tend to finish each other's sentences."
Despite this, Red Bull's advisor Marko mentioned to ORF after Monza's qualifying session that the team still needs to understand better how the front wings of McLaren and Mercedes work, particularly regarding their flexibility.
"The front wing of McLaren and Mercedes must be analysed," Marko stated on Saturday.
Dutch racing expert Tom Coronel told Viaplay, "Everyone wants to know McLaren's secret, because it's worth a lot of money. If you do well with high downforce and low downforce, like Zandvoort and now Monza, and you're good with tyre management everywhere, then they're going to be collecting big trophies for the rest of the season."
Former Red Bull racer Robert Doornbos believes Red Bull's handling difficulties are impacting Verstappen more significantly than his teammate Sergio Perez, with the gap between them narrowing over the past two race weekends.
"When the car is less good, the gap between Max and Perez is smaller," he explained to Ziggo Sport. "That indicates that there is no balance, so the car can no longer listen to Max's talent."
"They've even gone back to the original floor from Bahrain - that's race one," Doornbos exclaimed. "They're trying to figure out where they made the wrong development choices. Personally, I think there's a bit of a secret in these front wings. Christian Horner is saying it too. They're doing something different with them."
