Christian Horner says a strong base for Red Bull will help them as the year goes on and the windtunnel handicap they have.
With five Grands Prix down, Red Bull really have been the class of the field. Its Max Verstappen with three and two for Sergio Perez. It is really their campaign to lose not one but both the championships and if nothing goes dramatically wrong, it is their already.
This season is of course a tad different for the Milton Keynes outfit as owing to their 2021 cost cap infringement, they have less windtunnel time compared to their counterparts to go with an already less time for winning the last year teams’ championship.
Whether that hurts in the long term does remain to be seen but so far it has been ok for them and they have been careful and precise with how they manage it. A strong base with the RB19 has made life easier for them for the time being as per Horner.
“Since October last year, since the moment we have to be very selective how we use our wind tunnel time,” said Horner. “We don’t have the ability to just run loads of different ideas and concepts. It has to be very targeted and very focused. Thankfully, the basis of the car that we have is a solid starting point. I think if we were in Mercedes’ position, plus having to develop our way out of it, then you’d be…”
In a nutshell, as Horner says, they have been focused, very focused in fact, but not just that but admiringly clever the way they have been selective. In some ways they have been lucky too with the basis of this years Red Bull being a solid starting point to begin with.
But the bottom line for the team is they must be selective in what they research. “We have just an unlimited amount of runs,” said Horner. “So you have to be selective, you can’t run so many iterations you’ve got to focus on ‘Okay, well, these are the things that we really want to look at’. So it’s being a lot more selective in what you’re able to research.”
Mind you, having said that, when pressed about the process for the selectivity, Horner was amusingly to an extent very tight-lipped on the matter. “Oh, absolutely. The aero team are all over that,” he noted.
But despite the penalty, 2023 has once more seen them as the team to beat and this weekend at Monaco, Perez would love nothing more than to repeat his win in the principality from 12 months ago, thus making the score three wins all.
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