Why Formula 1’s “F2” teams are struggling to catch Red Bull

In a Formula 1 season of complete domination like this, it would be all too easy for the team at the top to start getting a bit complacent about things and let details slip knowing that the wins come easy.

But Red Bull is not the kind of outfit that would let that happen. And, in fact, its run of success appears to be having the opposite effect in making it more focused than ever to not let the good times end. Chatting to team boss Christian Horner on the grid ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix, it was almost as though the race was the very first opportunity he and the team had ever had to win a grand prix. “We’re going for it,” he boldly declared, as the team stood on the cusp of grabbing a record-breaking 12th consecutive Formula 1 victory to eclipse the feat of McLaren back in 1988.

Not only did Red Bull achieve its target, but the manner of Max Verstappen’s triumph at the Hungaroring rubbed further salt into the wounds of the opposition, who in recent weeks may have started to feel that the gap to the RB19 had begun to close down. A 33-second winning margin over Lando Norris was the largest Verstappen had produced this season and it was little wonder that after the race Mercedes boss Toto Wolff talked about F1 now being a multi-class series. After feeling that Mercedes’ race pace was much better than Lewis Hamilton’s fourth place indicated, Wolff said of the W14: “It was quick, quick in terms of the rest of the world, in the F2 camp. But the F1 car was ahead [of Hamilton] by 38 seconds.”

That Red Bull has beaten McLaren’s 35-year-old record is the perfect indication of the scale of the team’s authority on the 2023 campaign, but what is perhaps more remarkable is that it is delivering its form despite F1 being far more competitive now than it was in 1988.

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Back then, McLaren’s success was helped by a double whammy of factors. The final year of turbo engines being allowed had triggered many of its rivals to transition early to normally aspirated power units, which proved to not be as competitive. Williams went from champions to hardly ever being in podium contention after a move to Judd engines. Furthermore, the only realistic opposition that stuck with the turbo, Ferrari, had failed to make the kind of leap from 1987 that McLaren made as it transitioned to Honda with its MP4/4 – leaving the Prancing Horse on the back foot and unable to respond.

Red Bull’s current form comes in the second year of a new rules era and against the backdrop of regulations aimed at levelling the playfield – such as the cost cap and the Aerodynamic Testing Restrictions. This is not a case of the planets aligning to gift Red Bull its current rewards.

Horner has ensured complacency hasn't set in at Red Bull as it continues to crush its F1 rivals

Photo by: Red Bull Racing

As Horner said in Hungary on Sunday night, as he reflected on Wolff’s comments that there was now a two-tier grid of an F1 car and a chasing "F2" pack: “It is just the way that the team is working. I think that it's all about the details and I think we are leaving no stone unturned at the moment.

"Our strategy was strong, the pitstops today, a 1.9-second stop the guys put in for Checo and very quick stops again for Max. I think you're seeing the whole team just operating at such a high level. There's no silver bullet in F1 and I think it's always a culmination of factors that have to come together to achieve these kind of results.”

But there are some critical details in the background of the current rules era that are actually helping Red Bull in hampering the chances of the opposition closing down the gap as much as they would like. One, which has been mentioned by several teams in recent weeks, is the cost cap.

In previous years, had teams like Mercedes and Ferrari found themselves struggling in the way they were at the beginning of this season, then they would have unleashed much more aggressive update packages to try to close down the deficit.

That just is not possible. As Wolff said recently: “You cannot just go for a B-spec car. Lewis [Hamilton] and George [Russell] have been pretty vocal about what they would want to change in the car and that's simply not possible because we are lacking the financial corridor. And that's why we're looking very much at next year to change these things.”

The other F1 teams are playing catch up with their knowledge, but with one-hand tied behind their back because of the cost cap and prescriptive rules

There is another element at play here too, and one which is probably an unintended consequence of the shift towards ground-effect cars and better racing. Firstly, to prevent teams from creating cars with the outwash characteristics of the previous generation that triggered the difficulties for cars to follow each other, the FIA made sure to severely limit areas where teams had the freedom to do what they wanted to do with developments. This has proved prohibitive in allowing teams to unleash the kind of performance steps that were common in the past from new aero parts – like wings or bargeboards. In fact, the very areas where teams found critical gains in that past have gone completely with the 2022 cars.

Beyond that too is the fact that the new generation of ground effect machinery requires a very different approach for teams in being able to find gains. With the previous cars, teams would throw everything at simply trying to unlock more and more downforce – and bolt it on the car without hesitation because there was a near direct correlation between downforce and lap time improvement. But the current ground effect cars are different. As Mercedes found to its cost so badly at the start of the 2022 season, too much downforce with the current cars can be a bad thing because the cars get pushed towards the ground too much and enter a zone where porpoising and bouncing prove problematic.

PLUS: The philosophical and practical difficulties facing Mercedes in its design concept shift

The name of the game now is useable downforce; and that has put a premium on delivering a car with a good ride, great handling, a wide operating window and a nice solid rear end. Key to lap time is not only how much downforce a car delivers at a theoretical peak, but also the variation between when the car is running low to the ground (at high speed) and high up (at low speed) and all the phases in between.

The cost cap, new generation of cars and current ruleset are just some of the factors on why teams have not been able to catch Red Bull

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

It is also how the downforce works as the car brakes, and the rear lifts up to disturb the airflow passing through the diffuser. Teams need to factor in too what happens when the rear squats under acceleration. You can try to limit the downsides of these characteristics by running the car stiffer, but that then triggers another headache.

Speaking about the challenges of finding the right set-up compromises, AlphaTauri’s Jonathan Eddolls said: “It's harder to find it in the low speed because the ground effect cars, the closer they get to the ground [the more downforce they have], so it's easier to find in the high speed.

“But you've got a trade-off between where the aerodynamics are best, and then how to set the car up around that. So, for example, if you've got a peaky aero map, you could run the car very, very stiff, and try to just keep the ride heights in that window. But then when you've got a car that's very, very stiff, and you go to a bumpy track, you lose. So, it's about trying to find the compromise between the aero map and the ride and where you want to target the performance.”

And that is where the difficulty comes from. Finding more downforce in the wind tunnel, as teams have done for years, is only one part of the equation of being able to convert gains to lap time improvement. It is why teams have had to rethink their factory tools to better understand what is needed; and it perhaps explains why outfits that do get a handle on understanding exactly what is needed – as McLaren seems to have done – are able to make such big leaps forward.

As Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said: “With the old regulations, which we had a good grasp on, you didn't need to consider the car in the same dynamic sense. You were just saying it's at a certain roll angle, steer angle, certain ride heights and in doing that, you could capture what was going on. But the flow structures under our car, under every car, are more complicated now and they're more transient.”

Therein perhaps lies the secret of Red Bull’s success. Its engineers and designers understand exactly what is needed for this current ruleset, and it is that which has proved to be absolutely key in helping break a 35-year-old record. For now, the others are playing catch up with their knowledge, but with one hand tied behind their back because of the cost cap and prescriptive rules.

It means getting a full field of F1 cars is going to take some time.

Can any of the teams catch Red Bull?

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images