The pessimistic view of Mercedes’ driver George Russell is that Red Bull Racing will win each of the 23 races this season. This would eclipse the record held by Mercedes who won 19 of the 21 events held during the 2016 season.
Of course there are 23 races this season together with 6 sprint events so to win each of these
Mercedes all time record
In fact Mercedes hold a number of all time F1 records and if we exclude the one season wonder that was the Brawn team, Mercedes currently have a staggering win% against the number of races entered of 46%.
Again Brawn tops that chart with 47.1% with Vanwall in third with 9 wins from 28 starts giving them 32.1%.
Teams who have been competing for far longer clearly have lower averages through it’s probable Red Bull’s will climb during 2023 whilst Mercedes’ is on the slide.
| Constructor | Races | Wins | % | |
| 1 |  Brawn |
17 | 8 | 47.1% |
| 2 |  Mercedes |
272 | 125 | 46.0% |
| 3 | Vanwall |
28 | 9 | 32.1% |
| 4 | / Red Bull Racing[N 3] |
348 | 93 | 26.7% |
| 5 |  Ferrari |
1053 | 242 | 23.0% |
| 6 | McLaren |
925 | 183 | 19.8% |
| 7 | Lotus |
489 | 79 | 16.2% |
| 8 |  Matra |
61 | 9 | 14.8% |
| 9 | Williams |
781 | 114 | 14.6% |
| 10 | Cooper |
129 | 16 | 12.4% |
Fittipaldi “no doubt” Aston Martin will challenge RBR
The record books will continue to be written but double world champion Emerson Fittipaldi believes Red Bull Racing will not have it all their own way. The Brazilian has “no doubt” that Aston Martin will mount a challenge because their car was described by Alonso as just the “basic platform” in Bahrain.
Aston Martin missed out on sixth place last season at the final race in Abu Dhabi but this now plays to their advantage as they begin their in season development of the AMR23.
F1 introduced a sliding scale for windtunnel and CFD testing time that cuts the amount of testing allowed depending on a team’s championship placing in 2022.
Aston Martin big advantage in development time
This means Red Bull Racing have just 50 hours a year of wind tunnel time and a maximum of 202 wind tunnel runs. In contrast Aston Martin have 80 hours and 320 runs respectively together with around 40% more Computer Fluid Dynamics design time as well.
This advantage is massive and should not be discounted.
Martin Brundle believes Aston Martin have a real chance of catching Red Bull and even out developing them in the season long car development race.
Brundle: Painful for Mercedes
“It’s already a good package but if they know where to go to improve it, then by mid-season they could emerge as the major challengers to Red Bull.
That’s doubly painful for Mercedes because Aston Martin have the same engine, gearbox and rear suspension and use the same wind tunnel.”
Its also worthy of note that Aston Martin have significant insider knowledge on how the RB19 is put together having recruited a number of Red Bull’s senior designers and engineers.
Aston Martin recruited RBR knowledge
“At this juncture Red Bull will pipe up that, due to personnel movements, Aston have followed their design philosophy remarkably closely. That’s the playground politics of what is in effect a very small group of intensively competitive people.”
Playground politics or not, ax Verstappen should be cautious before counting his third F1 drivers’ world title.
Aston Martin have the platform and the incremental resources over Red Bull to out develop the team from Milton Keynes. Add to the mix a certain Fernando Alonso who is desperate to prove he deserves more than the two world titles he currently holds, and the chickens at this point of the season can certainly not be counted.
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School Yard Politics?
Tell that to the bad kid not the good kid. You know the bad kid that knows why he will loose before he starts the car. And the good kid that that is the same good kid that enjoys what he is doing, knows when he will quit, and doesn’t act like a sullen spoiled brat