Red Bull Technical Director Pierre Wache says the greatest strength of Red Bull’s 2023 Formula 1 car is its aerodynamic efficiency.
The RB19 – an evolution of the title-winning 2022 car – has proved the class of the field in the opening third of the 2023 season.
It has been driven to victory in all eight races to take place by Max Verstappen (6 wins) and Sergio Perez (2 wins), with the pair also combining to score three 1-2 finishes.
With the Austrian outfit possessing a crushing 150-point margin over its nearest competitor, Wache admits that Red Bull’s advantage has taken the team by surprise.
“Honestly I think when you make the car, you try to make it as quick as possible,” he said. “As quick a car as possible.
“And after, the success is also depending not only on you but also on the others. Then yeah, the difference is bigger than what we expected.”
Having prevailed on several different track configurations, when asked to give his assessment of the RB19’s greatest strength, Wache said: “The efficiency, I would say.
“On different tracks we are able to produce downforce without massive drag. That I think is the main strength, yeah.”
Despite upholding a considerable competitive advantage – particularly in race trim – Wache is fully expecting Red Bull’s nearest rivals to progressively close the gap over the coming rounds with updates.
After Mercedes and Ferrari introduced extensive upgrade packages of their own, Aston Martin further unveiled a raft of new parts ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix.
With Red Bull prioritising smaller additions to its all-conquering machine, the race in Montreal marked the first time all season that another car finished within 10s of the RB19 under green flag conditions.
“You see that in Quali for sure they are every time closer, in terms of pure performance,” he acknowledged.
“After, in terms of management of pace during the race, we have some advantage – but I’m sure they can unlock, and you see some update coming from our competitor here and, for sure, it will be closer.”
The rest of the competition was able to get a detailed look at the intricacies of the RB19’s floor after the car was hoisted into the air in Monaco following Perez’s crash in qualifying.
However, Wache asserts that Red Bull wasn’t exasperated by the floor area of its dominant 2023 charger being exposed, citing that rival teams will already have had access to similar images beforehand.
“It was not the fact that we see the floor: the frustration was more that the car was in the wall – I think the main frustration,” the Frenchman stated.
“But yeah, it’s how it is – and it happened to our competitor also. The car was in the air.”
He added: “They see some detail on the floor but I am sure you can ask them what they see and if they were to learn something.
“But I think they already had some pictures from the garage, and saw some detail of it before.”
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