Red Bull Racing have this season built a Formula One car that this weekend may claim to share the plaudits for being the ‘best F1 car ever built’ should either Max Verstappen of Sergio Perez win the Hungarian Grand Prix.

With the world champion’s win in Silverstone this took the tally of consecutive races won to 11 which matches a record held by McLaren since 1988. However, Red Bull at present are counting the final race of last season in their total while McLaren completed their run of 11 with the legendary MP4/4 during the 1988 season.

 

 

Red Bull chase McLaren MP4/4 legendary status

The iconic McLaren car driven by team mates Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost was designed under the watchful eye of guru designer Gordon Murray who along with Red Bull’s Adrian Newey is credited with being one of the greatest minds ever seen in the field of Formula One car creation.

Yet the RB19 has it all to do to match the MP4/4 in seasons success as only for the second time this year Red Bull have conceded pole position to another team.

Coincidentally the RB19 has received its biggest and most visible upgrade this year for the race at the Hungaroring and Max Verstappen’s complaints about the lack of rear end grip all weekend have led some to believe the team have made a mistake in the design of the new components on the car.

The new look RB19 has visibly wider but shorter (vertically) side pod intakes to cool the radiator and has taken an advantage of an FIA loophole which allows the team some free wind tunnel testing time.

 

 

RB10 biggest upgrade improves cooling

The aerodynamic testing restrictions except, “wind tunnel testing solely for the development of power unit heat exchangers that reject heat to air,” which therefore allows work on the ducts that feed air to these components.

As Gary Anderson writing for The Race explains there are clearly significant benefits to the entire air flow management around the upper surfaces of the car from this upgrade although the benefits of this won’t be seen until F1 reaches Spa in Belgium next weekend.

However, Lewis Hamilton well known for his expertise in aerodynamics and computer fluid design modelling has suggested Adrian Newey and his team of experts have got it all wrong.

Wolff issues Hamilton warning

 

 

Hamilton: “never seen a car so fast”

At the second event this season in Saudi Arabia Lewis Hamilton declared he’d “never seen a car so fast” as Max Verstappen – who started in P15 following a driveshaft failure in qualifying – blew past the Mercedes driver at a rate of knots by just lap 12.

“I’ve definitely never seen a car so fast,” Hamilton claimed after the chequered flag.

“When we were fast, we weren’t that fast. That’s the fastest car I’ve seen, especially compared to the rest. I don’t know why or how but he [Verstappen] came past me with serious speed.

“I didn’t even bother to block because there was a massive speed difference.

 

 

Red Bull’s astonishing DRS

With Formula One engine design frozen for four years the excess pace of the RB19 was due to its efficient aerodynamics and clever DRS design.

Gary Anderson later penned an article suggesting it was not merely the Red Bull DRS but a clever combination of airflow at thereat of the car from the defuser, beam wing and the rear wing and its DRS which propelled the RB19 at such speed along the long straight.

Lewis Hamilton now believes that Red Bull have lost their edge and that his Mercedes team are closing in on the world champions. Hamilton claimed pole from Max Verstappen by just 0.003s but the Red Bull driver unusually failed to improve his time on the final run in qualifying.

Ricciardo’s breakthrough comeback

 

 

Hamilton dig at ‘failed Red Bull upgrade

Having brought to an end the run of five straight pole positions for Verstappen, Hamilton questioned why the Red Bull’s DRS and top speed had disappeared.

“I mean, they’ve still got the DRS, they don’t have the DRS advantage all of a sudden that they used to have. Where did that go,” queried Lewis.

Hamilton appeared to have a dig at the Red Bull design team suggesting their biggest upgrade of the year had failed to deliver.

“I mean they’ve just had an upgrade, so we expected them to have taken another step. We heard it was around two-tenths or something like that. So for them to not have been able to extract that in qualifying is interesting.”

 

 

Sky F1 analyst questions Hamilton’s viewpoint

However Sky F1’s pit lane reporter and analyst Ted Kravitz poured scorn on Lewis Hamilton’s theory during his regular feature post qualifying “the notebook.”

“I know Lewis Hamilton is starting to encourage us in the media to ask questions as to why Red Bull, in his view, why Red Bull aren’t as quick as they used to be. 

And in his view why Red Bull aren’t getting the same advantage from the DRS that they have all season,” Kravitz revealed.

Hamilton may be supposing Red Bull were in breach of the FIA technical regulations and have done a behind doors deal to stop using a component – much as Ferrari did with their power unit in 2019.

Perez responds to Red Bull sabotage

 

 

Hamilton agenda queried

The vastly experienced Sky presenter then created some intrigue by suggesting Hamilton may have an agenda behind his criticism of the RB19.

“I’m not sure that’s ultimately true. But Lewis certainly wants to put that out there and get the media to investigate that.”

The reality is more likely to be the less powerful DRS on the Red Bull car is circuit specific. The Hungaroring is a track often described as a science of corners stitched together and it has 14 turns and a front straight less than a kilometre in length.

With the race set to start with the arch rivals from 2021 on the front row together for the first time the paddock is rife with speculation over what may happen in the first corner.

Horner slams Hamilton criticism

 

 

First corner carnage?

During their titanic battle in 2021 Verstappen and Hamilton came together on a number of occasions most spectacularly in Silverstone but again in Monza which saw both drivers fail to finish the race.

Kravitz concluded his piece by questioning ho Verstappen will manage the pressure of wanting to equal the run of the historic McLaren MP4/4 with his desire to overtake Lewis into turn 1.

“I’m sure Max will go to bed thinking ‘you know what I’ll let him at the first corner. I will let Lewis have the first corner’,” Kravitz mused.

“But can he do that? Can Max let Lewis have the first corner off the start? Lewis? Can he let Lewis have the first corner off the start or does he have to go for it?”

Mercedes engineer ‘gives up’ on catching Red Bull

 

 

Verstappen to play ‘long game’

According to Lando Norris, Lewis Hamilton has the best statistics this season at the start of the Grand Prix and so believes it will be difficult for him to overtake over the 400metres to turn 1.

“Max’s start being good, not bad, they’ve been okay. Alright, he lost out to Lando at Silverstone, they’ve been alright, but they haven’t been stellar. But what does he do tomorrow? All I can’t wait to see what is going on,” continued Kravitz.

Verstappen lost the lead to Norris at the start of th recent British Grand Prix, yet bided his time knowing when DRS was enabled from lap 3 onwards his car had the superior speed to overtake the McLaren.

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There was no holding back on those emotions for @LewisHamilton 💜

His first pole position since the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix #HungarianGP #F1 @MercedesAMGF1 pic.twitter.com/eXOTqXksYn

— Formula 1 (@F1) July 22, 2023