Why Red Bull’s biggest F1 adversary is now itself

Lewis Hamilton spoke for many people in Saudi Arabia on Sunday when he suggested that Red Bull’s advantage in Formula 1 this year is greater than any he had seen in his career. In the RB19, Red Bull has produced a simply stunning car that is a step and a half in front of everyone else.

It’s super quick in a straight line (its DRS-open state was what especially caught Hamilton’s attention) and it derives a further lap time advantage over the opposition by being so fast in the slow- and medium-speed corners, which count much more as a percentage of lap time than the high-speed turns.

Sure, the Aston Martin may be brilliant under brakes, and Ferrari/Mercedes may have flashes of advantage in the super-fast sections, but, as a complete package, the Red Bull cannot be beaten. Ferrari may appear to be a sniff closer when it comes to running qualifying engine modes and extracting pace over a single lap but, in the race, the Red Bull is gone. Intelligent estimates put it around one-second per lap up the road, which in F1 terms is huge.

It is little wonder then that rivals are talking not of steps that can haul themselves to the front of the field this year. Instead, it’s now about closing the gap as much as possible and then hoping that 2024 can be a bit of a reset.

Not since McLaren’s truly dominant 1988 campaign (which bears striking similarities to this year in terms of one or two teams getting the regulations spot on while many others tripped up), has the potential been there for a complete clean sweep of wins. Back then, McLaren needed to keep its car in front for 16 races, and it managed it 15 times thanks to Ayrton Senna tripping over backmarker Jean-Louis Schlesser at Monza. This year the challenge will be to do it for 23 races, which is almost a 50% increase in the number of events compared to 1988. It’s a tough ask but, based on current pace terms, it looks to be a feat firmly in its grasp.

At some venues rivals may be closer, and Red Bull may not get pole position everywhere, but the way it can unleash something extra on race day means even those stumbles may be easy to recover from – just as Max Verstappen was able to charge through from 15th to second in Jeddah last weekend.

Red Bull comfortably has the edge on nearest rival Aston Martin currently, leading Hamilton to call it the most dominant car he has seen in his long career

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner even labelled its advantage over rivals following the safety car as “remarkable”, as it appeared effortless for the RB19s to roar off in to the distance. So unless the likes of Aston Martin, Mercedes and Ferrari come up with some miracle update that can find them one-second per lap (and even they are not anticipating that), the scene looks set for a very one-sided campaign.

But if this scenario would make you think Red Bull’s senior management can now just kick back and expect everything to come easy, its 1-2 in Saudi Arabia has highlighted that the biggest threat to a clean sweep does not come from its rivals – it comes from within.

First, there is the reliability aspect that Red Bull got a rude awakening with in Saudi Arabia as both Verstappen and Sergio Perez encountered their own problems. Perez’s weekend was impacted by an unspecified mechanical problem on Friday that initially put him on the back foot, but points to the team being far from bulletproof. Then, of course, there was the driveshaft failure that put Verstappen out of Q2 and prompted some heart-sinking moments in the race as the Dutchman radioed several times with concerns for what he said was a high-pitched noise at high speed.

PLUS: How Perez kept Verstappen’s Saudi Arabian GP surge at bay

It all comes off the back of some less obvious gremlins in Bahrain too. There was the weird set-up issue that left Red Bull all at sea with its balance on Friday at Sakhir, as Verstappen also confessed to “some other things which are going on in the background”. The team has also been encountering a few gearbox problems too. We have heard Verstappen on the team radio several times talking about issues with downshifts, and the team swapped gearboxes for qualifying in Jeddah prior to going back to the Bahrain ones for the race.

Whether or not the situation needs the kind of “review” that Perez asked for after the race, it is clear that there is some underlying competitive tensions between drivers that have not been laid to rest in the wake of the post-Brazilian Grand Prix controversy

Interestingly, Perez revealed after the Saudi GP that things had been on the edge in the opener – and it may have had a different outcome if the squad had not been cruising late on.

“We were in a lucky position in Bahrain but otherwise, if we had to push to the end, we probably wouldn't make the race,” he said. “There are a lot of reliability concerns at the moment but hopefully they don't hit us anytime soon.”

In the end both cars have made it to the chequered flag in the leading positions, and you can be sure that Red Bull will be taking a close look at its cars back in Milton Keynes before the Australian Grand Prix to ensure there are no repeat problems. But while it may be a simple matter to sort out the driveshafts and gearboxes, a more complex situation is also evolving that may prove much harder to keep a lid on: handling its drivers.

The Red Bull pitwall was unable to prevent its drivers going for the fastest lap bonus point in Jeddah

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

The scale of Red Bull’s advantage over the rest of the field means that the 2023 season looks likely to boil down to a straight head-to-head title fight between Verstappen and Perez. And, when the stakes between team-mates are elevated to being in an exclusive fight for wins and the world title, that inevitably increases the intensity. It happens time and again in F1; team-mates who can operate fine together when the fight is for podium finishes or below can fail to see eye-to-eye at all when it boils down to wins and the title.

PLUS: What Perez's Jeddah joy means for F1’s 2023 hopes for a real title fight

Red Bull knows only too well how things can spiral out of control when there becomes an edge between its drivers. Just think of Multi-21 in Malaysia 2013, the collision between Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel in Turkey 2010, and of course the “not bad for a number two” front wing controversy from that year's British Grand Prix.

In Red Bull’s two current drivers, there is clear potential for a tinderbox to get ignited, with the single-minded approach of Verstappen going up against a determined Perez who will be no push over. We already had a flash point after last year’s Brazilian Grand Prix team orders controversy, but it is clear that things have not been totally reset when it comes to trust on the other side of the garage.

There was a first glimpse of that in the closing stages of Saudi as Red Bull tried to manage the pace of its two leading cars to ensure that they did not break down. As requests came in for them to hit a delta, both drivers were initially ignoring it and gunning several tenths faster. That triggered Perez’s concerned radio message about what lap time he was being told to run to compared to Verstappen. While Horner brushed off Perez’s paranoia as “normal” after the race, his querying of the situation highlights the stakes at play.

Then, of course, there was the issue of the fight for fastest lap on the final lap of the race. Both drivers had been told in the closing stages that they no longer needed to manage the pace, but it became pretty obvious late on that the fastest lap point was a big enough prize to go for.

Verstappen’s emphatic message to the team, that he cared about the point it was not worried about, made it obvious he was going to go for it – and in doing so, take the lead of the championship. Perez seemed slightly annoyed about the matter after the race, but Horner suggested that the Mexican had also made an attempt to go for it – only to abandon his effort after a poor first sector.

“He knew that Max was going to have a crack at it,” he said. “And Checo gave it up after the first couple of turns, he was already a tenth and a half down, and then you saw him back out of it.”

Whether or not the situation needs the kind of “review” that Perez asked for after the race, it is clear that there is some underlying competitive tensions between drivers that have not been laid to rest in the wake of the post-Brazilian GP controversy. And, while Verstappen sitting down in the race winners’ chair in the pre-podium green room may have been an innocent mistake, equally it’s the kind of gamesmanship you would not put past any top level F1 driver.

Red Bull must manage any tensions between its drivers that linger from the Brazilian GP last year

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

The dynamic between Verstappen and Perez also heaps further pressure on Red Bull to get its reliability spot on because, with the team in an unchallenged position at the moment, one DNF for either driver would mean four wins in a 1-2 on the bounce to recover from.

For now, Horner is far from concerned about the situation and thinks his drivers are “mature” enough to understand that the team comes first on all occasions. Asked last weekend about the main threat coming from within the Red Bull camp, Verstappen also seemed to relish the prospect.

“If that's the case it’s fairly simple, right?” he said. “We are allowed to race, so the best one will finish in front…”

In theory that is correct. But throw into the pot reliability, team orders, penalties, luck, mind games and politics, and things can get much more complicated. And it’s that scenario that is likely going to give Red Bull’s management more headaches this year than what its rivals are up to.

Will internal dynamics cause Red Bull more headaches than its rivals this year?

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool