It says a lot about the dominance of Max Verstappen and Red Bull in Barcelona, who team boss Christian Horner lists when asked about the strongest opponents in the race on Sunday: “There’s the weather, there’s the reliability, the start, the strategy. How the tires behave in the fast corners. There are so many things.”
What he can’t think of are opponents in the sense of other drivers. The superiority was too overwhelming for Red Bull to fear anyone in the race under normal circumstances. Monaco didn’t flatter the RB19’s strengths, while Barcelona did, says Horner. “And Max made great use of that.”
The lead over Carlos Sainz in the Ferrari at the end of qualifying was almost half a second, and Verstappen could even afford to abort his last Q3 lap after the best split times in order to protect the set of tires. It was probably the most impressive show of power of the 2023 Formula 1 season so far.
Verstappen’s form is currently “incredible”, says Horner: “A great performance. The car is also running excellently. We discussed whether we even needed the second lap, but then went out just to be prepared for all eventualities. As soon as clear was that nobody will beat their time, but we stopped it.”
Verstappen: RB19 is “like on rails”
Verstappen was completely satisfied with the performance: “The car felt like it was on rails,” he reports from qualifying. “The second lap would have been even better. At high speeds our car works really well. It all feels good together and when you have that feeling you can really attack all the corner entries.”
That’s exactly what brings “a lot of lap time” to a flowing track like Barcelona,” smiles the 25-year-old and adds: “The combination of curves 1/2/3 was really good. Curve 9 is fun. The last three curves were okay, but those I got most of the time in turns 1, 2, 3, 4 and maybe 6. Maybe 7 too.”
When Sergio Perez’s RB19 was lifted by a crane and the underbody exposed in Monaco, it became clear why. Red Bull probably has the most complex underbody of any team. The Williams underbody, which could also be seen in Barcelona after Logan Sargeant’s crash, looks like a clumsy wooden panel in comparison.
The gap to everyone else is so big that Verstappen can talk to rather irrelevant experiments: “I didn’t drive the last corner once,” he says. “Maybe I would have tried it on the last lap. Unfortunately not in the race. Maybe next year when the cars are even better.”
It is also impressive how Verstappen has outclassed his own teammate. While Perez would have safely entered Q3 without his departure, his lap times were noticeably slower all weekend. It seems that Verstappen has now finally taken the helm in the team-internal duel.
Racing is actually one of Red Bull’s strengths
As for the race, the Dutchman isn’t too worried. Qualifying, in which he downright outclassed the competition, was seen as Red Bull’s greatest weakness ahead of Barcelona. “We know,” says Verstappen, “that we’re good when it comes to tire wear. I hope we can show that in the race. “
Sainz reckons Verstappen will have at least half a second per lap of the race in his quiver and be able to manage the lead should he win the start. And Horner also believes that the factors he mentioned at the beginning, such as weather and reliability, are the “biggest factors that can prevent him from winning this Grand Prix”.
“We therefore have to make sure that we do our best in the race and have everything under control: the weather, the strategy, the tires – in other words, all the variables that can go wrong,” says the Red Bull team boss. And: “It’s great for Max that he’s on pole here for the first time. As far as I remember, it’s our first pole here since Mark Webber in 2011.”
Horner’s memory does not deceive him: Although Barcelona is considered Red Bull terrain due to the aerodynamic nature of the track, the track record of recent years looks meager. No poles since 2011, and only two wins since then. Both go to Verstappen’s account: 2016, in his first Grand Prix for Red Bull, and 2022.