Looking at the 15 race wins Max Verstappen achieved in 2022, it would be considered one of the most convincing championship wins in the sport. But there was a point where Verstappen did not have much hope of winning his 2nd title.
After the Australian GP, Verstappen was 46 points behind Charles Leclerc in the standings. And Red Bull wasn’t on the same level as Ferrari.
The team suffered reliability issues at the start of the season. But the bulk of their problems was coming from the excess weight of the car.
While speaking to Austrian media outlet Servus TV, Helmut Marko has promised that Red Bull are working on an update for Imola that addresses the ongoing weight issue of the RB18.
“That should give us a significant time advantage, time gain in other words,” the Austrian said. pic.twitter.com/DXHoSufLUB
— Dan – EngineMode11 (@EngineMode11) March 28, 2022
As soon as the issue was spotted, Red Bull devised a plan to put the RB18 on a diet. And the move paid dividends as the team went on to the drivers title and Constructors championships.
How Red Bull achieved its ideal car weight
At the start of the season, the Red Bull RB18 was supposedly 10-15 KGs above the minimum car weight of 798 KG. This affected lap times and the handling of the car which did not suit Max Verstappen.
Added to that, the new regulations car was still being studied by the team and was becoming difficult to predict. And after poor performances in the first three races of 2022, the team decided to start trimming the weight.
Red Bull aggressively cut 8Kgs off the car’s weight ahead of the Emilia Romagna GP. And that proved to be the win which would see Max score a grand slam and set the tone for the rest of the season.
798 kg (min) – Alfa Romeo
803 kg – Haas , McLaren
805 kg – Alpine
808 kg – Ferrari
813 kg – Red Bull and MercedesAlpine are really pretty close to the minimum weight according to AMuS #AustralianGP pic.twitter.com/tkh3RvR93z
— Aston Martin F1 updates (@startonpole) April 5, 2022
Red Bull brought in further reductions and upgrades to the car for Miami and Spain. By the halfway mark, Max had overtaken Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in the standings and Red Bull found its ideal weight.
Going into the Summer break, Red Bull was the fastest car on the grid. And would see Max win 5 straight races starting from the French GP.
Also Read: Christian Horner once had to fight with Ron Dennis to get Adrian Newey to Red Bull
Max Verstappen regards understeering RB18 as his biggest challenge
Max Verstappen is known for his attacking style of driving and his late breaking. The Dutchman also prefers his car to oversteer a bit more than usual.
But due to the car lying on the heavier side of the scale, the RB18 did not operate according to his liking. And with the new regulations on cars’ safety features and tyre covers, it became a challenge for Red Bull to find optimum reductions.
However, the team were successful in the mission. And immediately, Verstappen began to see the results.
2021 🏆
2022 🏆Double #DutchGP victories for @Max33Verstappen #F1 pic.twitter.com/FtRPuaRfOc
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 4, 2022
Max said, “Being really overweight created an understeering balance and once we started to get rid of that, it started to be more agile again. Not just twitchy but more agile. You could really use the front end.”
He adds, “A car cannot be fast with understeer. It’s impossible. Especially with the tyres we had this year being a bit more understeer limited as well. You cannot have a car like that.”
The timely upgrades also aided the 2-time World Champion’s campaign. But the racer still claims understanding tyre wear and preserving it was a big challenge.
