I don't believe the original intent was to design the car exactly to Max's driving capabilities (not style), but it went in that direction. I remember someone at RedBull (maybe Horner or Marko) stating that they didn't want to change the car for Perez as he was the slower driver and their goal was to build the fastest two cars.Watto wrote: ↑11 Jul 2025, 02:15I am not sure you can attribute that to Max's feedback though unless you know what his feedback was, Mercedes ignored Hamilton because on paper they could make the car faster, and it didn't go well.
Perez was okay with the Red Bull for a few years 20,22,23 he was in the top few drivers, 24 he fell right off obviously Horner did say last year they looked through the data and identified an issue where Perez started to drop off the issues really began.
I think you could argue Max's talent probably hid the issues, but who know if Max continued to push that direction or if the car kept going quicker and they just didn't pay attention to it - from memory Horner said the issue game to an update in 2023.
Newey said the loss of experienced engineers hurt in its development I think probably pointing out the signs were all there in the data but ignored because the car kept going quicker.
Was some of this Horners fault? I tend to think some of it was I think he could have easily directed engineers to look at what Perez was struggling more. Bit like Stella with McLaren and Lando.
Seeing now two other drivers struggle to tame the RB21, it's clear that at some point there became a self-fulfilling prophecy.