Within hours of Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix, some of Max Verstappen’s rivals seemed ready give him this year’s title with 22 races still to run.
The Red Bull driver won the season opener race 11 seconds ahead of teammate Sergio Perez and 38 seconds away from nearest non-Red Bull rival Fernando Alonso.
It was an absolutely superior performance, and a Verstappen achieved despite racing well within his ability or his car.
“Red Bull has this championship ready,” Mercedes driver George Russell told journalists on Sunday night.
“I don’t think anyone will fight them this year. They will win every race, that’s my bet.”
In this respect, it is difficult to argue with Russell. F1’s history is filled with seasons dominated by a single team or driver, and the sport seems to be at the beginning of a new era with the relentless successes of Red Bull and Verstappen. .
Although a team has never won every race in a season (McLaren last finished in 1988 with 15 wins from 16 races), Red Bull’s performance advantage in Bahrain is large enough to set the question of whether such a feat is possible in 2023.
However, Sunday’s results also come with a big caveat: like the Bahrain Grand Prix, it’s still a sample of a race from this year’s 23rd season. Furthermore, the Bahrain International Circuit is a known exception to the F1 schedule, with an unusually rough track surface and a traction-heavy layout that causes the rear tire to penalize more than any other track in the series. schedule.
Along with Alonso’s Aston Martin, Red Bull were the only team to effectively manage rear tire deterioration in Sunday’s race, making victory seem remarkably easy. The next lap in Saudi Arabia causes less damage to the rear tire and while it is also an unusual lap compared to the majority of F1 races visited, it is likely that some of Red Bull’s advantages will be restricted to Jeddah.
“Saudi is a completely different song from this one,” Verstappen said. “You have more straights, quicker turns and a lot lower slopes. And I think we’ve been particularly good here on slopes. So I’m really looking forward to the race pace that everyone has. people in Jeddah are closer together, yes.
“Our car seems pretty strong at high speeds, but I think the Ferrari is pretty quick in a straight line, which in Jeddah is nice to have, let’s say.
“But yes, time will tell. It’s really hard to know. We’ve only driven these cars in Bahrain, so you just have to wait and see, and of course try to get there in condition. as best we can, and we’re going to figure out exactly where we’re going.”
That’s not to say Red Bull won’t have the fastest car in Saudi Arabia – or at every other lap this year – but it would be wise to temper some of the more sweeping predictions until some race takes place. Maintaining a record for 100% reliability while avoiding accidents, strategic errors and mistimed safety cars means that a perfect winning record will require a bit of luck coupled with technical prowess. by Red Bull.
“Twenty-three races is a marathon and it’s about campaign consistency,” Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner said when asked if his team could win every race of the year. now or not. “Today was a great start, but we fully expect the opponents to come back tough in future races.
“I’ve been here long enough to see things change so quickly and I still think these cars are still relatively immature. As teams grow and upgrade, things change.”
Why was victory so easy for Verstappen in Bahrain?
It is clear from three days of pre-season testing before the Bahrain Grand Prix that Red Bull will be the team to beat on Sunday, but the size of Verstappen’s advantage still surprises.
When Charles Leclerc withdrew his Ferrari from the race due to engine problems on lap 40, he was 24 seconds behind Verstappen, demonstrating Red Bull’s advantage over Ferrari of 0.6 seconds per lap.
That number doubles the distance between the two cars in a qualifying lap – standing at 0.297 seconds – showing the fact that Ferrari has over-degraded tires compared to Red Bull in Bahrain. That theory is supported by Carlos Sainz’s lack of pace in the final stages of the race, when he lost his last podium to Alonso despite a 0.2 second lead over Aston Martin in qualifying. days earlier.
Knowing that rear tire deterioration would be a key factor in Sunday’s race, and with confidence it had one-round performance to spare, Red Bull adopted an automotive setup to Protect the rear tire in the race, even if it means making sacrifices. some speed in qualifying.
“A lap performance and a track record are very different in terms of balance requirements,” says Verstappen. “So even if I said earlier in Friday’s training that I wasn’t happy with my long runs, my long runs were fine. So I’m not really surprised. [by the performance]Of course, I’m glad it turned out like this.”
Red Bull’s tire care also means that Verstappen can go for faster but less durable soft compound tires for both opening legs before switching to hard compound tires at the final stop. Meanwhile, the remaining drivers in the top 8 have no choice but to use a soft set followed by two difficult sets to finish. Simply put, Red Bull’s competitors will not be able to implement the same tire strategy without facing a catastrophic performance drop.
“We’re a little more focused on the race [with the setup] Horner said. “So we were able to run on softer material, especially in the middle of the race, and still have durability.”
Perhaps the biggest concern for Red Bull’s rivals is that Verstappen has never really pushed the limits of his car. With his rivals getting smaller in the mirror with each passing lap, he was able to overtake it with relative ease on Sunday, meaning Red Bull’s true potential remains. remains a mystery.
Will Red Bull face any serious competition this year?
Red Bull’s impressive performance in the opening race was only half the story in Bahrain. While the world champions have made a significant step forward in the winter, it is clear that Mercedes and Ferrari have not improved enough.
Verstappen’s 38-second advantage over Alonso in third underlines the Red Bull RB19’s performance this year, but arguably that’s not surprising. Such a gap between Red Bull and the top group of F1 on a track wasn’t uncommon last year — the big difference in Bahrain is that there weren’t any Ferraris or Mercedes cars to fill that gap.
Red Bull and Aston Martin have been rightly praised for their achievements over the winter, but look the other way and Mercedes and Ferrari (plus other middleweight teams like McLaren and Alpine) have fallen short. deserved position. In particular, Mercedes has fallen into an area previously occupied by upper midfield teams, while Ferrari has shown a continuation of their ethos from last year of quickly passing a lap but struggling. in catching up with Red Bull on race distance.
Looking at it that way, it’s easy to see why Mercedes is so keen to change its car concept – something team boss Toto Wolff expressed to the media after only one elimination session. Wolff’s call to action is even easier to understand when you consider that the Aston Martin that finished 12 seconds on the road bought its engine, transmission and rear suspension from Mercedes and developed its car in Mercedes wind tunnel.
Being beaten is always an embarrassing experience for one of the top three teams in F1, but being beaten by a customer is embarrassing.
“When you look at where we were at the end of last season where it looked like we caught up a lot, we almost doubled if not tripled our gap with Red Bull in the year. now,” said Wolff.
“What Aston Martin was able to achieve was a good inspiration because they came back two seconds behind the pace and became the second-best team.
“For us, things were terrible and in the race you saw the consequences and we fell behind.
“I’m not overreacting; the gap is huge and to catch up we need to take big strides. Not ordinary steps.”
Looking at the results of the first race in Bahrain with the benefit of hindsight, it should be easier to draw the link between winter break winners and losers. After a hugely disappointing start to F1’s new specifications last year, Aston Martin has abandoned its original car concept and isn’t afraid to look to Red Bull’s bodywork for Grand inspiration. Spanish Prix 2022 onwards.
Switch to Red Bull style concept saw Aston Martin hit moderate performance in the 2022 season, but clearly opened up a rich performance circuit to capitalize on over the winter. Furthermore, the huge contract of new technical director Dan Fallows from Red Bull last April and his deputy Eric Blandin from Mercedes will bring a wealth of knowledge from both teams to contribute. for AMR23 this year.
Meanwhile, Mercedes and Ferrari pursued their own car concepts quite differently from Red Bull, which obviously resulted in a slower pace of improvement. Wolff’s comments over the weekend suggest Mercedes is poised to get back on the drawing board, but new Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur remains adamant that his team car idea can still challenge Red Bull once Reliability issues and tire deterioration on Sunday night are understood.
“I am completely convinced of this,” Vasseur said. “I’ve never seen a car match another car in qualifying and not be able to do so in a race — it’s a matter of setup and some of the options on the car. But it’s not conceptual at all, so we don’t need to go this way.”
But from Red Bull’s point of view, their Aston Martin is the biggest threat at the start of the new season, especially in the hands of Alonso.
“They looked very strong in today’s race,” Horner said. “It was interesting to see Fernando there, who gave people in their forties hope that the old boy was still alive and he raced really well.
“He’s still very competitive and Aston looks a good car. Based on the results of one race you would have to say they are the second strongest team here.”
