The RB19 is, today, unbeatable. After five great prizes, Red Bull has more points (224) than aston martin (102) and mercedes (96) together. Verstappen’s comfortable comeback to victory at the Miami GP shows once again that the RB19 has details that others are unable to emulate. The Dutchman leads the drivers’ championship (119 points) close to Pérez (105) and with some margin over Alonso (75). But where does that mechanical advantage come from? Why is Saturday camouflaged and Sunday accentuated?
From the outset, there are hardly any differences between the three strongest power units on the grid. Honda, Mercedes and Ferrari have an even performance. The Italian engine offers a little more performance in exchange for an asterisk in reliability. In the days of Hamilton’s dominance, a huge part of the responsibility could be attributed to the engine. With the 2022 rule change, aerodynamics once again separate the single-seaters and that is where the Milton Keynes house marches many months ahead of the rest. The RB19 stands out for two highly developed ideas: a ‘hyperstable’ suspension and a hugely efficient DRS.
Suspension and DRS
The front suspension follows the scheme pull rod, but the arms reproduce very aggressive angles that make it possible to reinforce the stability of the car when braking. They limit the maximum sinking of the car when it slows down and the height of the car barely fluctuates. So they can roll closer to the asphalt than rivals and generate more suction through ground effect without compromising the durability of the flat bottom, because they have no rebound.
In addition, rival engineers maintain that Red Bull’s main weapon to make a difference is its DRS system: experts have dubbed it ‘triple DRS’ due to the perfect integration of the spoiler, the ‘beam wing’ and the diffuser on the rear end. Checo set a top speed in Miami of 342.8 kilometers per hour and Max was second on that table (341.2). Aston Martin and Mercedes stay at 338 km/h and Ferrari, at 336.2 km/h. for cars energetic Generating a lot of downforce is not incompatible with having higher points than those of single-seaters that prefer to carry little drag (Williams, Alpine…).
The new rubber trap
Why is this advantage multiplied on Sunday and they have more than one second per rental lap? Because the new rubber in qualifying masks weaknesses, explain sources of paddock. With the newly released Pirelli soft, the drivers find more grip and the characteristics of the car are no longer the only limiting factor. Leclerc took pole in Baku and the Ferrari or Aston Martin have already appeared on the front row of the grid. With the used tire the real characteristics of each single-seater can be appreciated.
In any case, it is worth going back to the beginning: Red Bull never had a serious ‘porpoising’ last year, or they knew how to solve it before it was visible, so from the beginning their experiments in the wind tunnel were aimed at extracting more performance, when Ferrari or Mercedes lost months of work trying to end the rebound, just as Aston Martin has invested a lot of resources to change the concept of the car after a 2022 uncompetitive. The RB19 does not have two brilliant ideas: it is a round car and all the elements work interconnected. Also, the track team is able to tune it to perfection at every grand prix; and the mechanics do not make mistakes in the pit stop. It is a gear without weak points that integrates the best car, the best team and… the strongest driver.
