2022 represented one of the biggest technical revolutions in Formula 1 of the last forty years. At the dawn of the new regulations, the majority of cars were still overweight having exceeded the Federation's minimum mass target of 795kg, which clearly represented a competitive disadvantage.
Those who, like Alfa Romeo, had approached the limit set by the FIA at the start of the world championship had thus been able to count on a good advantage, so much so that in the first part of the championship the Swiss team had managed to carve out a role that was anything but marginal in the midfield. However, race after race the competition managed to reduce the weight of their cars and this, combined with the lack of updates due to budget problems, then caused the C43 to slip out of the points.
The issue of weight was also decisive at Red Bull, because at the start of the 2022 world championship the RB18 was significantly overweight compared to the minimum target that the Federation had imposed. This had clearly negatively influenced several aspects of the car, primarily agility, but also on other characteristics, limiting the possibilities of intervening on the balance. During the season, the engineers began working to reduce the weight, so much so that in Spain that year there were problems which, as Red Bull confirmed at the time, were caused by a lightened device to recover a few grams.
Photo by: Erik Junius
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB18
If the RB18 had already managed to become the reference car during 2022, a year later its direct descendant established itself as the absolute dominator of the season, achieving 21 victories out of 22 events. Undoubtedly there are several factors that have played in favor, such as having designed a car with a wide operating window or the fact that rivals have realized that they have gone in the wrong direction in terms of development, so much so that both Mercedes and Ferrari have progressively abandoned their initial philosophy. However, according to Red Bull Team Principal, Christian Horner, it was precisely the weight reduction that allowed the great leap forward to be made.
Asked by Motorsport.com if Red Bull understood why the RB19 was so dominant, Horner replied: “You have to remember that with the RB19 there were a large number of components that came from the RB18: gearbox, a lot of the suspension and half of the frame. For this year it was effectively a cut and sew.”
“The most significant aspect we were able to resolve was weight. We were so far behind the new 2021 standards [i regolamenti inizialmente avrebbero dovuto essere introdotti nel 2021 prima che venissero posticipati a causa della pandemia]due to the championship battle, that the 2022 car was a little too heavy.”
![Red Bull Racing RB19, technical detail](https://cdn-9.motorsport.com/images/mgl/0a9avP40/s1000/red-bull-racing-rb19-technical-1.jpg)
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
Red Bull Racing RB19, technical detail
“We were therefore able to remove 20 kilos from the car for this year and fix some imperfections. But there were a lot of spare parts and some components won, in Max's case, 19 races this year and 15 last year, so the combination of the two is 34 races.”
Horner believes that weight reduction was the most important step between the RB18 and RB19, and said that improvements were found in all areas, which also provided numerous benefits in terms of balance and ballast management : “We reduced the weight almost everywhere. There wasn't a specific area where it was possible to reduce [sensibilmente] weight. There were only marginal gains in all areas. I believe this was the fundamental difference between the 2022 and 2023 car.”
In the past year, in fact, there have been cars, such as the AT03, which have suffered negatively due to the excessive weight of some components, including the chassis. As you might imagine, Red Bull remained overweight for the entire 2022 season despite the interventions and some of the lightening work was only completed in the winter, as confirmed by Horner himself.
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