Due to the unusual track characteristics, the Singapore Grand Prix is likely to be the last major stumbling block for Red Bull in 2023 that could prevent the team from winning all races of the season.
Construction work on the final sector of the Marina Bay City Circuit means four of the signature 90-degree curves have been scrapped. The replacement, a longer back straight, will reduce the load on the rear tires. That could open the door for Ferrari in qualifying, as could the fact that tire wear won’t be a big issue on the slippery asphalt.
The expected limited effectiveness of the DRS will reduce another advantage for Red Bull and the overtaking problems on the narrow street circuit could also make it difficult for Max Verstappen or Sergio Perez to rehabilitate in the race if they miss pole position. And the RB19 certainly has no advantage on the bumps and high curbs that characterize the road course.
Weaknesses of the competition would be absolute with BoP
But Red Bull’s rivals wouldn’t have had to wait until the 15th of 22 rounds to end a winning streak that began in Abu Dhabi last year. The competition would be much tighter if balance of performance was a feature of the premier class.
Given that Red Bull is busy trying to maintain a 100 percent winning record – and the prospect that the rule book will remain largely unchanged until 2026, suggesting two more seasons of the Red Bull era – the BoP topic is in Formula 1 has resurfaced recently.
Performance equalization measures are particularly common in sports car and GT racing and serve to compensate for inequalities in the field. A turbo boost would help make up for the 30 horsepower deficit that Alpine claims is affecting its aspirations.
Mercedes could address drivers’ complaints about an unstable rear end by giving it more leeway in the positioning of ballast. Williams could be hoping that others will cut back on their aerodynamics to reduce the downforce deficit.
Despite more and more show: sportiness is in the foreground
In the World Endurance Championship (WEC), the IMSA SportsCar classes and the touring car series, the BoP enables head-to-head racing between cars with front, mid and rear engines, with front and rear drive or with V8 and V6 -aggregates. This encourages manufacturers to take part, as a BMW M4 can compete against a Lamborghini Huracan, despite completely different approaches.
In Formula 1, however, the introduction of BoP would only serve to make the races tighter and increase the spectacle. The duel between Red Bull and Ferrari at the beginning of 2022 seems to be a long-missed luxury. A Formula 1 title fight with three or even four teams is currently a true utopia.
But no one in the field seems to be interested in the prospect of being able to help the teams. Even in this period of commercial boom, highlighted by the popularity of Drive To Survive, teams would rather let the on-track action suffer and jeopardize viewership as long as Formula 1’s sanctity as a competitive sporting society is maintained .
Ferrari: Aero handicap is already enough BoP!
Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur sums up the mood when it comes to the suggestion that the FIA and FOM should intervene to slow down Red Bull. He says: “I’m not a big fan of the Balance of Performance or any kind of artifice like that. That’s not the DNA of Formula 1 at all. And at the top we already don’t have the wind tunnel allocation, with some kind of balance Balance of performance, but balance of allocation, and that is enough.”
One explanation for why Vasseur and his fellow team bosses are in agreement at this moment is that the paddock has moved to the engineers. Despite the successes of Mercedes and Red Bull under the leadership of Toto Wolff and Christian Horner, these two are the exception rather than the rule.
See McLaren promoting Andrea Stella, Williams poaching James Vowles and Aston Martin bringing Mike Krack out of the DTM. The new model stipulates that the engineers are in charge. Former Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto also comes to mind. Engineers love the challenge of closing a gap on their own terms, and the BoP stands in stark contrast to that.
As Vasseur suggests, the BoP is not a completely foreign concept in Formula 1 anyway. It’s more like there’s no room for something as obvious as installing engine restrictors and success ballast.
The cost cap and sliding scale of Aerodynamic Testing Restrictions, which limit the number of wind tunnel and CFD runs teams can complete, already serve a similar purpose. Even if not overnight, they should pave the way for rapprochement.
Why is Red Bull so dominant?
Aston Martin’s leap forward from 2022 to 2023 and McLaren’s progress so far in the season prove that the order of competition is by no means fixed. Red Bull is currently unattainable because they started the era of ground effect cars with the optimal concept and had two years to develop it further. The others have to catch up after having to at least partially rethink their architecture.
Red Bull insists the RB19 was not designed along the lines of the groundbreaking Lotus 72 and will therefore set the template for car design for generations to come. Rather, he is an “all-rounder”. Chief engineer Paul Monaghan sums it up when he says: “Its weaknesses are fewer than those of our competitors… our ducks are currently lined up.”
The team is also surprised that it has taken so long for a competitor, in this case McLaren, to emulate its powerful DRS effect, which is achieved by combining a low-drag rear wing and a special beam wing with higher downforce .
Teams are preparing for the Red Bull era until 2026
This reflects the fact that nine teams are dropping the ball somewhat to allow Red Bull to maintain its current winning streak. The rest of the team is not trying to develop their own version of the double diffuser, as was the case in the first races of 2009. Red Bull has mastered the era of ground effect cars with flying colors and has remained at the forefront thanks to constant refinements.
It is feared that after surviving the ten percent aerodynamics penalty for exceeding the cost cap for 2021, Red Bull will continue to develop their concept and thereby remain largely unchallenged. But that’s what the industry prefers. Laissez-faire, not BoP.
Stella says: “We don’t want any help. We want to close the gap with our own resources. And we like that challenge. And that’s what we want for the next few years.”