Why Red Bull’s rivals are struggling to replicate its “average good” F1 package

Perhaps it’s not quite true to label the Red Bull RB19 a ‘Jack of all trades, master of none’. Formula 1’s trip to Singapore proved that the car is indeed fallible: the bumps and staccato corners of the Marina Bay street circuit finally pushed the current performance benchmark beyond its incredibly wide operating window.

That weekend was unlike the end of the McLaren MP4/4’s winning streak at Monza in 1988, which came about through bad luck and poor judgement – engine trouble eliminated Alain Prost before Ayrton Senna then stumbled over Williams substitute Jean-Louis Schlesser. In Singapore the RB19 lost its 100% record when its inherent shortcomings were exposed. But it’s by zeroing in on these scarce weak spots that the car’s – for the most part – brilliance can be appreciated.

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The Singapore lap is typified by short 90-degree corners and aggressive kerbs. To conquer these in a period of ground effect and spending restrictions, which compel protecting expensive and complex carbon floors, entails jacking up the ride height. The resulting loss in performance – Max Verstappen recovered from 11th in qualifying to fifth as team-mate Sergio Perez climbed from 13th to eighth – reinforced the notion that the
RB19 doesn’t like uneven surfaces.

That’s why Fernando Alonso could make Verstappen sweat in Q3 in Monaco, which eventually went the way of Max by a mere 0.118 seconds – with the caveat that Red Bull openly favours race pace at the expense of qualifying trim. It also emerged at Spa that the Red Bull drivers were backing off through Eau Rouge to avoid bottoming out.

However, this doesn’t mean that for most snooker-table-smooth permanent circuits, engineers simply whack the RB19’s suspension as low as it will go. Predictably, it’s a little more nuanced. When stationary the Red Bull still sits high enough. But once it’s rolling, it markedly hunkers down as the passing air presses it into the asphalt. That the chassis has the capacity to sink into the surface points to a soft set-up, which helps Verstappen and Perez nurse those precious Pirellis.

As the car runs increasingly slammed, the RB19 excels with an ability to maintain a predictable aerodynamic platform. This equals consistent behaviour through different corner profiles which, in turn, precedes a capacity to drop the rolling ride height further to maximise ground-effects and therefore downforce. Yet Red Bull can still escape the porpoising sensation that hobbled rivals so severely in the early part of 2022.

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The entire world got a good look at the RB19's floor when Perez crashed in Monaco, but replicating it is a whole other challenge

Not revolutionary, just “average good”

Brilliant? Undeniably. But hardly as exploitative of the rulebook as the double-diffuser from 2009. Nor as pioneering as the Lotus 72 rocking up with sidepod-mounted radiators and setting the template to which all future F1 cars would be designed. Despite it amassing 14 GP (and three sprint race) victories on the bounce, the RB19 isn’t a gamechanger. 

As team technical director Pierre Wache explains: “I don’t think we understand more than the others. I think it’s more we have a compromise maybe better than others. Everybody understands, more or less, the weight of the mechanical grip starts to be higher than in the past; the stiffness has a big play on that. Then the link between the aero characteristic
and how you have to run the car is bigger even than before. 

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“[The car] is average good for everything – that is creating a good car. It’s not very good in one aspect. Fundamentally, I would say we didn’t do a fantastic job. I was more surprised by others who didn’t do as good a job.”

Red Bull has been tinkering with this set-up for the better part of two seasons now. The question is, why did it take until the 2023 Belgian GP and a major McLaren upgrade package for another team to try and properly replicate this success? Even Red Bull is surprised it has been so long

When it comes to ride control, Red Bull hasn’t relied on a silver bullet in the form of a trick damper that the FIA will imminently ban. Instead, success is owed to a less headline-grabbing thorough understanding of the whole package. The same is true of the aerodynamics. The treatment given to the floor – designers estimate the current regulations place 60% of the emphasis on underbody aero and the rest on top surfaces – enables the RB19 to generate sufficient downforce that the rear and beam wings can then be backed off. This has contributed so greatly to the car’s straight-line efficiency north of 180mph.

Whereas the acceleration curves of Mercedes and Ferrari tail off more quickly at the end of a straight as drag takes its toll, the Red Bulls keep marching on. Given the potency of the RB19’s floor, mechanics can opt for a low-drag rear wing but still theoretically inspire driver confidence. Verstappen, at least, puts that into practice. Alternatively, a chunky main body for the rear wing can be equipped so a larger flap will yawn open to exploit DRS. This is compensated for by fitting a slender single-tier beam wing that slices cleanly through the air. Again, very clever but not necessarily earth-shattering.

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

The RB19's floor allows Red Bull to run a skinnier wing to cut down drag while maintaining downforce and performance

Red Bull has been tinkering with this set-up for the better part of two seasons now. The question is, why did it take until the 2023 Belgian GP and a major McLaren upgrade package for another team to try and properly replicate this success? Even Red Bull is surprised it has been so long. Wache adds: “What is crazy is that people speak about it two years after we introduced that. We had hundreds of checks from the FIA to check if we had a trick. People don’t understand why on the very high-downforce tracks, the advantage disappears. OK, so they still don’t understand. That very much surprises us.”

Deeper understanding

The answer begins in 2022 with the double championship-winning RB18 that reigned supreme in 17 out of 22 GPs. Given its supremacy, Red Bull naturally favoured evolution over revolution for this year’s challenger. With a sound concept established, attention turned to putting the car on a diet, optimising weight distribution, learning just how stiff a set-up could be deployed, plus nailing the mandated 15mm rise in the floor edge and kick line devised to eradicate porpoising.

As Mercedes and Ferrari continued down their developmental dead ends – the former eventually abandoning attempts to unlock the capricious ‘zeropod’ concept, the latter plateauing with the performance that could be extracted from its bathtub design – Red Bull gained ground by refining its downwash sidepod solution. Now, even though all teams have coalesced around this optimum, they are still playing catch-up to Red Bull, which arrived at it first and has had to time to perfect the art.

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While Perez crashing out of Q1 in Monaco allowed well-positioned photographers to snap the treasure chest that is the Red Bull floor as the car was precariously craned, teams couldn’t simply reach for the tracing paper. Unlike the previous-generation machines that responded to more and more downforce being bolted on in the form of an even fiddlier bargeboard, these ground-effect racers require a holistic approach. The aero platform, ride height, stiffness and tyre wear are all intrinsically linked. To hit the sweet spot means avoiding the temptation to pinch one design aspect from Aston Martin and marrying it to an element from Alpine. They were never conceived to work together.

What’s more, the cost cap now prohibits teams from spending their way out of trouble and introducing ‘B’-spec machines. They’re much more locked into their existing architecture. This has helped Red Bull maintain its advantage and offset the 10% reduction in wind tunnel time and CFD simulations dealt by the FIA for exceeding the
2021 cost cap. 

Photo by: Mark Sutton

After its Singapore blip, Verstappen and Red Bull were back to dominating in F1 a week later in Japan

Excluding late red flags and Safety Cars (Australia, Great Britain and the Netherlands) plus Verstappen pitting late for fresh tyres to nick a bonus point for fastest lap (Austria), and the average gap from the winner to the highest-placed non-Red Bull car stood at 21.928s. That was until the Singapore nadir, where Verstappen took the flag 21.441s adrift of Carlos Sainz. But seven days later, the defending champion crossed the line in Suzuka 19.387s clear of the chasing pack. The RB19 is still very much the yardstick. Granted, though, the static nature of the gap at the chequered flag has been partially enabled by the inability of Red Bull’s rivals to decide who wants to finish runner-up; McLaren is now in the mix for second-best after the decline of early threat Aston. 

No silver bullets

Bouncing back in Japan also indicated Red Bull boss Christian Horner was right to state that nothing on the car had changed as a result of two technical directives coming into force just in time for the Marina Bay blip. TD18 acted as a ban on flexi-wings, after some competitors had worked masterfully to conceal moveable mechanisms that rotated around the nose cone. TD39, originally an anti-porpoising intervention, was also tightened to banish floors flexing around the skid block holes and plank. Had Red Bull also struggled at Suzuka, there would have been mounting evidence to suggest the secret behind the RB19’s success had been exposed – and outlawed.

"Ultimately, we’re blessed with a very competent car, different circuits, different downforce levels, different speed ranges. Its weaknesses are not such that we can go to one track thinking we might get a win and other tracks we’re going to struggle" Paul Monaghan

Horner says: “There are no silver bullets in this business. I know all of you would love to blame the TD but unfortunately, we can’t even blame that. It’s not changed a single component on our car.” He clarified: “At Monaco, there were already signs that street circuits were a challenge for us. Azerbaijan as well. I think that there have been some short-corner circuits that have posed some issues for us. It’s something that obviously we’ll be looking to address going forward because you have to have a car that can compete across a broad spectrum of circuits. I think actually that’s where RB19 has been pretty strong.”

Finding a fix for short corners. Hardly a shopping list of problems to resolve for 2024. And that is the bottom line when it comes to determining the success of the RB19. The constructors’ championship is more determined by how strong each car is when it’s at its worst. Not how good it can be at its best. Red Bull’s deep appreciation of ride control and aerodynamics helps the car remain stronger for longer. 

Chief engineer Paul Monaghan sums it up: “Its weaknesses are less than those of our competitors. You could say that our ducks are lined up in a row presently. Ultimately, we’re blessed with a very competent car, different circuits, different downforce levels, different speed ranges. Its weaknesses are not such that we can go to one track thinking we might get a win and other tracks we’re going to struggle. We don’t fear them.”

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

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