Wache: Newey inexperience comment doesn't matter

After utterly dominating the 2023 F1 season, Red Bull Racing suffered from a slump in 2024 as they lost their edge with the RB20 developing balance issues as the team went down a development path that meant their car was undriveable by Sergio Perez—he was fired—while Max Verstappen also had a tough time extracting performance out of it.

Red Bull highlighted the 2024 Italian Grand Prix as the point of that season where they identified the problem, but it seems it is taking them more time to sort it out as their form in pre-season testing in Bahrain delivered more questions than answers.

What made matters worse for Red Bull in 2024 was the departure of Newey, which was announced in May 2024 to join Aston Martin. He started work for them last Monday.

However, Newey, in a recent interview, claimed that Red Bull's loss of performance was down to lack of experience from the technical team he left behind, which is a bit bizarre as decisions made around the 2024 Red Bull single-seater were most probably made when the celebrated designer was still on top of his job...

Wache, who took over the top technical job at Red Bull, responded to Newey's comment in an interview with Planet F1. He said: "It’s true that I have a lot less experience than [Newey].

"He’s 66 years old, and I’m 50—16 years less experience than him. I cannot comment on that. I don’t take it personally, and maybe it’s true.

"It doesn’t change anything. I think what you have to learn… This type of comment, for me, doesn’t matter," Wache insisted.

Explaining further, the French engineer added: "We didn’t do a good enough job last year, and we lost ground in terms of performance—maybe by experience, maybe by misunderstanding some stuff, and we tried to correct it.

"What is correct is that it looks, for me, that we understand. I think this is how you learn the most. When we were in 2023, we learned less than last year, and every problem you have gives you a little bit more to understand what you need to do.

"In this sense, I think it was very beneficial, and it’s what I enjoy the most. Fixing a problem is our job. Personally, it doesn’t affect me. From my point of view, my job is not personal.

"My job is to make sure, in an engineering competition, I’m more affected by the fact that we are not good enough and losing, than a personal comment about myself," Wache concluded.