RED BULL RAC|NG
The winning machine never sleeps
Ah yes, Red Bull, the team with too much money…
What a mercurial outfit Red Bull are. Having spent the better part of the last decade watching arch rivals Mercedes steamroller season after season, the insomniac fizzy pop upstarts are back where team boss and Drive to Survive badguy-you-love-to-hate Christian Horner fervently believes they belong – on top.
The 2022 technical regulations effectively wiped the slate clean and Red Bull’s greatest asset, designer Adrian Newey, penned another monster. The RB18 had many strengths but its ballistic straight-line speed, courtesy of a majestic lack of drag, was breathtaking to behold.
But Red Bull were so desperate to get back to the top they spent too much money, which creates a twofold challenge this season. Exceeding the frankly paltry £114 million they were allowed to spend, Red Bull have been hit with a modest fine and a 10 per cent reduction in all-important windtunnel time. What’s more, because they won, they’ve been made further strangers to the tunnel by F1’s playing-fieldlevelling ATR, or aerodynamic testing restrictions. Together with the penalty, their ATR limit on wind-tunnel time and computational fluid dynamics hours (effectively simulated wind-tunnel time) amounts to a circa 25 per cent cut – ‘a significant handicap’, as Horner puts it.
Has HR been busy?
All quiet on the driver front. Funnily enough, reigning champion Max Verstappen stays, as does the deeply impressive Sergio Perez. After breaking a few hearts and minds in their search for a decent number two, Red Bull finally saw sense, eschewing their own talent-nurturing Red Bull Junior Team programme and signing the clearly brilliant Mexican. While he failed to finish the season ahead of Ferrari star Charles Leclerc, two wins and a string of second places are proof of Perez’s prowess, which combines speed with a wondrous ability to go hard without completely toasting the Pirellis bolted to his car.
But he faces a challenging 2023 season. Early last year he was right in the mix for the drivers’ title but, as Verstappen edged away on points (and Red Bull developed the car in a direction that suited their lead driver), Sergio’s speed relative to Max’s dropped away. While he has a two-year contract in his back pocket, he’ll want to close that gap in 2023. Where HR has been busy is in its negotiations with Ford. You’ll recall Red Bull were helped back to the top by Honda, who then promptly left the sport. The 2023 power unit retains Honda architecture (and in a semi U-turn, Honda will have a bigger presence in 2023). But Red Bull – long infuriated by its status as a customer team with regard to engine/power unit supply – see their long-term future with Ford. In a technical partnership with Red Bull Powertrains that’ll power both Red Bull and Alpha Tauri cars from 2026,
Ford’s arrival coincides with a shift (read simplification) in the technical regulations.
|f the team were a movie they’d be…
A The A-Team montage – just Adrian Newey, shirt-off, in a Milton Keynes lock-up, working through the night with a heap of carbon and exotic alloys, an old Honda engine and an angle grinder. Seriously though, the lack of aero development time would be a major handicap for any other team. With Newey, not so much.
THE RB18’S MAJEST|C LACK OF DRAG WAS BREATHTAK|NG