Dr Helmut Marko has dismissed increasing concerns regarding the dip in Red Bull's car performance this year.
There have been whispers that, with teams like McLaren, Mercedes, and Ferrari seeing improvements, the FIA might have discreetly informed Red Bull some time ago to halt a dubious technical practice.
France's Auto Hebdo has now confirmed that starting this weekend at the Dutch GP, the FIA has outlawed 'asymmetric braking' systems.
Such systems would theoretically enable drivers not only to tweak the brake balance between the front and rear but also between the left and right sides.
Nevertheless, a source from the FIA confirmed it is "not true" that any team has implemented such a system on the 2024 grid.
Although Adrian Newey has scaled back his active role at Red Bull and will leave entirely early next year, Pierre Wache, the continuing technical director, refutes that this has led to any decline in performance.
"If you spend three years developing a car concept and the regulations offer little freedom, then you automatically approach the limit," Auto Motor und Sport quotes him as saying.
"The biggest problem is that the rules are much stricter than with the old cars. We can no longer do what we want," the Frenchman stated. "That's why it's more difficult to react to problems."
Speculation is mounting that starting from the Italian GP at Monza, Red Bull might begin to roll back some of the season's car upgrades and experiment with older parts.
"Like Mercedes at the beginning of the year, we are sometimes fast and sometimes slow depending on the conditions," team consultant Marko acknowledges. "Sometimes it even happens in the same race as in Silverstone, where it rained."
However, Marko maintains that the situation might not be as dire as reported. Max Verstappen currently leads the driver standings over Lando Norris by 78 points, with McLaren only 42 points behind in the team standings.
"We are better than our last results show," Marko stated. "Without the bad pitstop in Spielberg, the collision with (Lewis) Hamilton in Hungary and the grid penalty in Spa, Max would be in a better position."
