The perfect start to the season: front row in qualifying and one-two in the race. Red Bull dominates the Bahrain Grand Prix and lays the best foundations for getting its hands on the third consecutive World Championship. The RB19 succeeded, at least in Bahrain, in the arduous task of reinforcing the already overwhelming superiority of the 2022 RB18. Red Bull was the team that most of all could have suffered from the change in the regulations in the changes to the fund. However, the Milton Keynes team turned the obstacle into an opportunity, changing the operating concept of the RB19, now much closer to the ground. The return to minimum weight and the work on the suspensions complete what at the moment, even more than the car to beat, is the one to study.
Precise front: Verstappen satisfied
“I don’t know of a fast car that understeers”, says Max Verstappen. Listening to the driver’s needs is extremely important for the designers, which, listening to Lewis Hamilton’s words, Mercedes would not seem to have done properly. The development by Pirelli of sturdier tires made it possible to go down with the inflation pressures in complete safety. The new tires made it possible to recover grip at the front, reducing the understeer of the previous Red Bull, progress to which other factors also contribute.
It was the Belgian Grand Prix and the Spa paddock was spreading the rumor that a new lightened chassis was being created in Milton Keynes for the RB18. However, the new body never made it to the track and malicious rumors want it to be a deliberate decision so as not to mount controversy over the budget cap. With the RB19 of 2023, however, it finally makes its debut a lighter frame compared to the previous version. Together with a general lightening of the various components, the RB19 thus drops to the minimum weight of 798 kg, like many of its colleagues. From the images taken in the pits, it is evident how the body has been streamlined in the most advanced part, where the two “teeth” in the lower area disappear.
In the growth expressed by Red Bull from mid-2022 until the last Bahrain Grand Prix, Verstappen has often emphasized the importance of the weight factor. Not only was the RB18 about ten pounds overweight, but the excess weight was concentrated in areas that helped generate understeer. A year later, in Bahrain, the Red Bull mechanics were seen instead positioning the water bottle in the lowest point of the cockpit located in the most forward area, inside the nose near the pedals. It is the signal of a car with a weight distribution now more shifted towards the rear than in 2022, which no longer discourages mechanics from placing ballast and other components in the front.
Increased aerodynamic efficiency
In mid-2022, the FIA amended the technical regulations for 2023 with the aim of preventing porpoising. The changes foreseen by the Federation have led to the raising of the outer edge of the bottom by 15 mm and of the keel of the diffuser by 10 mm. The new regulation has thus exposed the bottom more to external turbulence, inviting the teams to descend with the heights from the ground also to take advantage of the lower sensitivity to porpoising. The change was not welcomed by many, but especially to Red Bull, which has not spared criticism of the new regulations. The 2022 RB18 was the car that revved at higher than average heights and the rule change could have negatively impacted Red Bull’s supremacy, just as the floor changes in 2021 hurt low rake angle cars the most. However, Milton Keynes’ team took the obstacle and turned it into an opportunity. Red Bull has in fact changed the aerodynamic concept, bringing the car to work much closer to the ground, thus finding that downforce it needed so much. Part of the credit must be attributed to the suspension, which allows the RB19 to turn close to the ground without hitting it violently. The bottom itself of the RB19 is an aerodynamic masterpiece, with a highly complex outer rim to increase lateral extraction of air from the venturi channels and push turbulence outwards. The comparison with the underbody of the Ferrari SF-23 gives an idea not only of the goodness of the underbody of the RB19, but also of how much attention was paid to the underside of the car in Milton Keynes.
From the data collected by Federico Albano, it is clear that the RB19 now generates much more downforce than its predecessor. The speed in the high-traffic corners was one of the weak points of the RB18 in comparison with the Ferrari F1-75, compared to which, however, it prevailed on the straight. For 2023 Red Bull has increased overall downforce, especially through the bottom. This made it possible to draw new front and rear wings more unloaded and efficient, so that the greater downforce does not compromise straight-line speeds, which instead remained similar to 2018. The RB19 has therefore grown in aerodynamic efficiency, improving mileage in fast corners and maintaining speed on the straight.
Imperfect Red Bull
The RB19 impressed during testing for consistency and overall balance, but a few problems emerged as the Grand Prix approached. The rubbering process on the track increased the available grip by shifting the balance towards the rear, with Verstappen once again complaining of understeer. However, this did not prevent Red Bull from dominating the race, for two reasons. In fact, in Bahrain the limiting factor is the deterioration of the rear tyres, which is why a more stable rear end limits sliding, protecting the tires precisely on the most critical axis. Furthermore, while the grip of the new tire generally tends to hide the balance problems in qualifying, according to Verstappen the opposite happened to the RB19. The world champion was dissatisfied with the single lap balance, but with a full tank of fuel and without having to push the car to the limit in the race, the situation improved. Like the RB18, its heir was also born as a race car even more than a qualifying onealthough in 2022 the less incisive lap in qualifying was due to the difficulty of stabilizing the tire pressures.
Red Bull is heading towards Jeddah as the absolute favourite, but still with some things to work on. The Saudi trail is in fact notoriously front limited, requiring a precise front even more than the stable rear seen in Bahrain. Then there is the desire to make the RB19 digest the harder compounds, excellently exploited in Bahrain, but in any case deliberately discarded for the intermediate stint in preference to the soft ones. Last, but not least, Ferrari has to recover supremacy on the straight. In fact, Formula 1 is now arriving in Jeddah, Melbourne and Baku, three tracks with long straights where absolute speed is important not only in terms of lap time, but also in attack and defense manoeuvres. Always assuming that Red Bull has to defend itself from someone.
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