Sergio Perez from Mexico, who races for Red Bull Racing, is leading his teammate Max Verstappen from the Netherlands in the Red Bull Racing RB19 car. This photo was taken on July 30, 2023, during the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa Francorchamps, Belgium.
According to Pierre Wache, the Technical Director of Red Bull, the team did not perform exceptionally well in the previous Formula 1 season, despite breaking numerous records. Despite winning 10 out of the last 11 races in 2022, Red Bull managed to dominate the competition by winning all but one of the 22 rounds in the recent season. They set a new record for the most consecutive wins, with a total of 15, and accumulated an unprecedented 860 points in the championship.
However, Wache suggests that Red Bull’s defeat at the slow-speed Singapore circuit revealed weaknesses in their car’s performance. He stated, “We did a good job – but we didn’t do an amazing job.” Wache also mentioned that they identified several weaknesses in their 2022 car and made efforts to address them in the RB19. While they were not able to solve all of the issues, the team managed to minimize the weaknesses and perform well on the track.
Wache also believes that Red Bull’s dominance was partly due to their main competitors, Ferrari and Mercedes, failing to make significant improvements during the winter break. This allowed Aston Martin and McLaren to emerge as strong contenders alongside Red Bull. He stated, “The strength of our car is also the weakness of the competitors, because I’m not sure we expected to be alone there.” Wache suggests that some teams lost their way between the 2022 and 2023 seasons, while Red Bull made notable progress.
Despite Red Bull boss Christian Horner’s warning about diminishing returns with the current generation of cars, Wache remains optimistic about further improvements. He acknowledges that there is room for progress in terms of ride, kerbing, and low-speed performance. Wache stated, “Max mentioned multiple times that our capacity on ride and kerbing and low-speed performance is not the best compared to some others. It’s clearly the area where we are pushing to improve.”
According to the Source motorsportweek.com