Red Bull Chief Technical Officer Adrian Newey asserts the team’s sole defeat during the 2023 Formula 1 season in Singapore “exposed some weaknesses” of its RB19 car.
The Milton-Keynes-based squad thoroughly dominated last season, winning 21 of the 22 races as it sealed the Constructors’ Championship with record rounds to spare.
Meanwhile, Max Verstappen utilised the reigning champion’s crushing advantage to surge to a tally of 19 victories en route to securing his third successive Drivers’ title.
Both Red Bull and Verstappen broke the previous record runs for consecutive wins, while the Dutchman passed the 1000 laps-led milestone at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
But despite winning 10 of the last 11 races in 2022, Newey has revealed that Red Bull had been braced for a stronger challenge than it received from the team’s rivals last season.
“Going into the season we thought this year was going to be really tough. The way it panned out, no one ever expected it,” Newey told the Formula For Success podcast.
“But the funny thing is, when you’re in it, you’re just in it. You’re looking forward, you’re not really reflecting.”
Red Bull’s supremacy was aided by both Ferrari and Mercedes opting to abandon their launch-spec concepts midway through the year, enabling Aston Martin and McLaren to emerge as credible front-running contenders.
However, Ferrari’s resurgence meant it capitalised when Red Bull encountered set-up troubles in Singapore, which resulted in Verstappen and team-mate Sergio Perez failing to even qualify inside the top 10.
Newey believes the nature of Red Bull’s troubles at the Marina Bay Circuit demonstrates that there is still scope for improvement with the side’s 2024 challenger.
“I’ve never been satisfied. We’ve had this fantastic season, broken barriers, records, or whatever. The reality is, there’s things with the car that we feel can be improved,” he explained.
“So actually you’re not really thinking about that [success], it’s focusing on things like ‘What are the weaknesses? How can we improve that?’
“It’s why Singapore was the race that we didn’t win. It’s quite useful for us, because we made a complete and utter arse of that if I’m honest, it exposed some weaknesses in the car.
“So that’s what you’ve really think about is ‘How can I improve that? How can I eradicate that for next year? And just move forward.”
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