Formula 1 cars are some of the world’s most finely engineered pieces of work. Each and every component of a car has hundreds of hours of research and development behind them. However, all of Red Bull‘s work came undone when marshals at the Monaco Grand Prix lifted up the RB19 following Sergio Perez‘s crash during Qualifying. The floor of the Red Bull car was exposed and Lewis Hamilton claimed that he has saved a lot of pictures of the floor on his phone.
The whole fiasco started off during the first part of qualifying when Sergio Perez ended up putting his car into the wall at the exit of Saint Devote. The Q1 session was red flagged and the marshals got to work, trying to remove the car from the track. In the process of doing so, the car was lifted up to an enormous height by a crane. This exposed the underside of the Red Bull car that has completely dominated the 2023 season.
Red Bull was not the only team that suffered this fate. A similar incident happened with Mercedes when Hamilton crashed in the final practice session. However, the engineering director of Mercedes made it very clear that teams would rather want to look into the engineering details that have gone into the Red Bull, rather than the Mercedes. This is because it is the Red Bull car that has managed to win all of the races this season.
Lewis Hamilton says that he will look at the Red Bull floor very closely
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton was one of many who took a close interest in the images of the Red Bull floor. While giving a post-race interview to F1 TV presenter Rosanna Tennant, Lewis Hamilton joked that he has saved all the pictures that he could get off the floor of the Red Bull car on his phone.
Rosanna revealed on the F1: Chequered Flag podcast that Hamilton had told her that he would be trying to get a close look at the pictures, zooming in. Rosanna herself joked that maybe looking at the pictures would help Mercedes get a bit faster when Formula 1 races next week in Spain.
Admittedly, Mercedes are desperate to improve their performance and close the gap to Red Bull. They have had a disappointing start to the 2023 season. The silver arrows managed to claim only one podium in six races this season. Monaco did not go any better for them. They missed out on a podium once more. Hamilton and Russell finished P4 and P5 respectively at Monaco.
Not everyone is as excited as Hamilton
However, not everyone is excited about the prospect of studying the underside of the Red Bull. Williams’ head of vehicle performance, Dave Robson, claimed after the race that the floor of the car is so sophisticated that it won’t be possible to copy it even with all the pictures that have emerged.
The British engineer said, “It’s so complex that on a 2D photo, because of the way the light is, it’s so curved, you can’t figure any of it out.” Therefore it is evident that the amount of research and engineering finesse that has gone into the Red Bull car will not be easy to replicate.
