After 21 wins in 22 races last season, Red Bull faces a difficult task in 2024: Where can the dominant Formula 1 racing team still improve? How does the car have to be set up and prepared for the upcoming season? Design guru Adrian Newey has now spoken about these questions and at the same time clearly stated his concerns.
Formula 1 will soon be entering its third year since the introduction of the new technical regulations, which brought about the comeback of ground effect cars in 2022. Red Bull has undoubtedly dominated this era so far, thanks to many good decisions made by Adrian Newey and his design team.
“With the RB18, the first car for the new rules, we managed to do the basic things right. We then further developed the car really well until the end of 2022,” Newey proudly looked back in the “Talking Bull” podcast . At the end of the 2022 season, ten of the last eleven race victories went to Red Bull.
Newey continued that he actually expected the field to catch up in 2023. But things turned out differently. “Last year it surprised us all – me most of all – we didn’t expect the dominance we had in 2023,” said the 65-year-old about 21 successes in 22 Grands Prix.
For this reason alone, Newey expects that in the 2024 season, which will soon start with test drives, “many cars will look like our car from last year.” He heard that many rivals took a closer look at the RB19 this time.
Formula 1: Red Bull at a crossroads
For Ferrari, Mercedes and Co., the conversion and imitation of the Red Bull approach means a big change. Newey’s team, on the other hand, instead takes a more defensive approach. According to the motto: What was very good should at least remain very good. But this is not so easy.
“This year’s car is the third evolution of the original RB18. What we don’t know, of course, is [ob] “The third evolution is too conservative, while others have done something different,” Newey spoke about his racing team’s concerns. “You just don’t know.”
At the moment we are a bit caught between chairs, the 65-year-old continued. “The whole thing is difficult. The question was whether we should try out a completely new direction with new ideas or whether we should continue on the path we were on.”
In the end, due to the limited resources imposed by the financial cap, the decision was made to further develop the existing one. “Unfortunately we can’t do everything,” said Newey, “so hopefully this was the right decision,” the design guru revealed his worries.