Red Bull's drop in performance a result of FIA questioning legality of the car, claims F1 pundit

F1 pundit Antonio Lobato has claimed that Red Bull's drop in performance was a result of FIA questioning the legality of some of the parts on the RB20. The Austrian team had been the dominant force during the first half of the season, winning five of seven races coming into the Monaco GP, and looked set to repeat the results of the 2023 season.

Although they won in Canada and Spain after their Monaco debacle, their performances have not been as dominant as their early season pace. The world champions have also been caught by rivals McLaren, Mercedes, and Ferrari this season which has resulted in them losing more races compared to last year.

During the international broadcast of the FP2 session at the Hungarian GP, Soy Motor's Lobato revealed that there is talk that Red Bull's recent performances have dropped due to FIA's intervention on some of the RB20's parts. He said:

"I was told from 2 different teams that they're convinced that the FIA told Redbull to change some parts."

To which his colleague responded:

"The drop of performance is because some team found out something illegal..."

Lobato concluded:

"Yes, and the FIA confirmed it and told them to retire it."

The world champions had the third fastest car at the recently concluded British GP and managed to finish P2 due to Max Verstappen's excellent driving in mixed weather conditions. They also brought a major upgrade package to the Hungarian Grand Prix this weekend to resolve their performance losses and move further ahead of their rivals.

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Red Bull team boss analyzes the upgrade package after the Friday Practice Sessions

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner stated that it was a 'positive Friday' for the team as Verstappen finished P2 in both sessions with Sergio Perez finishing P11 and P4 in the FP1 and FP2.

Horner said (via GPBlog):

"It's been a positive Friday. I would say probably Checo's best Friday since possibly China. Some of the cars are working well. There's a slight difference between the cars, both of them have upgrades... When the car works well you see that gap diminish between the two of them and hopefully he'll have taken quite a bit of confidence out of that."

"I think the car has been, whilst it's been performing, it's been on a bit of a knife's edge and I think we've seen Max just cope with that a little better than Checo certainly has. But hopefully, with the steps that we've made here, we've got the car in quite a nice window," he added.

Red Bull have failed to get a pole position at the Hungarian GP since 2019 though they have won the last two races in Budapest.