Adrian Newey would be pleased with his 2023 car after a 1-2 finish at the Bahrain GP. Based on the performance on Sunday, the legendary Aerodynamist has crafted another title-winning car for Red Bull
Max Verstappen won the race by a margin of 11 seconds ahead of teammate Sergio Perez. But things would have ended very differently for the Dutchman and his team had they faced a reliability issue.
Red Bull had completed 413 laps in the pre-season test with Max and Checo topping the charts. But the team were struggling under Qualifying sim-runs during FP1 and FP2.
According to Newey, the team were staring at a reliability issue and barely had much time to fix it before the race. But had the team not managed to figure it out, Verstappen’s fate would have been similar to Charles Leclerc’s.
Adrian Newey reveals reliability for Red Bull
After the 2023 Bahrain GP, Red Bull Technical Director Adrian Newey made a massive revelation. It turns out Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez’s RB19 was underperforming on single-lap simulation runs.
Newey shared, “The testing went well for us. We thought we had the best of all cars. However, FP1 and the rest of it wiped our smiles a bit because we had a few problems.”
The RB19 was tested under full fuel load and race conditions in the Pre-season Testing. But during Quali-runs conducted on Friday’s FP1 and FP2, the car wasn’t impressive as expected. Added to that the car was also exhibiting reliability issues.
Newey added, “They were unexpected problems with the car on the reliability point of few on Friday. The car wasn’t behaving the way we wanted. The conditions began to change slightly.”
Although the car managed to win in a dominant form, the Briton claimed there was a real scare amongst the engineers and mechanics. As he pointed out, “The duck seemed to be underneath the water on Friday.”
Red Bull managed to fix the issue in the nick of time and produced their first win in Bahrain since 2013. This was also the team’s first win in a season opener since 2011 Australian GP.
Also Read: Max Verstappen Almost Damages $200,000 Worth Parts of Sergio Perez’s RB19 in Post-Race Celebration
What happened to Leclerc’s car?
Adrian Newey pointed out that the current set of F1 cars is extremely reliable. And with minimum testing, they can give good results without frequent reliability issues. But this wasn’t the case for Ferrari.
Charles Leclerc was forced to retire at lap 40 of the Bahrain GP after a power unit failure. Leclerc was 3rd at the time, battling Sergio Perez when his car stopped after an issue with the Energy Store and Control Electronics of the engine.
The problem gets worse considering Ferrari had replaced these very components just before the race. This shows that Ferrari is yet to plug their reliability issues which cost the team in 2022.
It gets worse for the Monegasque as all teams are two energy store elements throughout the entire season. Added to that the components added to Leclerc’s SF-23 are non-recoverable.
This means Ferrari will have to fit new parts into his car. Resulting in the 5 time Grand Prix winner incurring a 20 Place Grid Penalty in the upcoming Saudi Arabian GP.
Also Read:Christian Horner Is Wary of Max Verstappen and Red Bull Underperforming in Coming Races
