According to Technical Director Jody Egginton, RB has withdrawn its lower limit for Barcelona after identifying it as the main reason why the upgrades for the Spanish Grand Prix did not produce the desired results.

A series of updates aimed at raising the level of the VCARB 01 and consolidating sixth place in the Constructors’ Championship ultimately compromised the balance of RB’s 2024 car and led to a frustrating weekend in Barcelona.

Egginton detailed the process the team went through to determine the main mitigating factors of the upgrade. Initially, rear wing flutter was suspected, as RB had identified the underbody losing power mid-corner.

The former Force India and Lotus engineer said that while it had been difficult to evaluate the package throughout the European triple-header, particularly because the Austrian Grand Prix was a sprint event, he was pleased with the insights the team had presented.

“We’ve had an update that’s aimed at certain benefits. We’re still trying to get all the key load improvements, but we’ve also focused a little bit on getting a little bit more stability under braking, a little bit more rotation in the car, all the normal things,” Egginton said in an exclusive interview with Autosport.

“As an overall package, it was clear we weren’t able to get everything out of it. And although the expected load was there, we had decoupled the car more than we wanted in terms of cornering and speed balance.

Yuki Tsunoda, RB F1 Team VCARB 01, in the gravel

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

“There was no doubt that the load was included in the package, but by exchanging load for credit we were unable to access this service.

“So we immediately decided to take one car back and do a back-to-back race in Austria. It was an experiment in two phases because the parc fermé window opens twice this year in sprint races. We tried it twice and hit rock bottom. And then for Silverstone we had a base aerodynamic configuration and essentially took the floor back.”

Regarding the design of the floor, Egginton explained that there were still aspects that the team would like to explore further – even if the first iteration ultimately did not work.

Although the team was disappointed that it didn’t work out, he added that returning to older specifications was a natural part of the upgrade process for every team in F1.

“The soil is a whole, with parts we like and parts we don’t like. There is no choice to divide it,” he said.

“You bring the update to the first event, you have things you want to learn, but we jumped right in, did our laundry, found the answer and moved on. So I’m pretty happy with the process.”

Yuki Tsunoda, AlphaTauri VCARB01

Photo by: Erik Junius

“Of course we’re not happy that we couldn’t access all the power that we had, which is far better than not actually realising the power. But yes, we have now agreed on a configuration.

“We learned a lot on this floor that we are not implementing and will apply it to the next floor because we like some aspects of it.

“Most teams have backed out at one point or another. To think you can do anything is naive – if you try to develop it aggressively, that’s just how it is.”

“I would be concerned if every single piece was held back! I would question it: ‘Are we sure, do we want to look at this again?’ Because experimentally the probability of that is low.”