Red Bull ended Mercedes’ 8-years of dominance in the sport in the 2022 season by claiming both constructors’ and drivers’ titles. But heading into the 2023 season, Mercedes’ team principal Toto Wolff predicts a disappointing season for the Milton-Keynes-based team.
The Brackley-based team started the current season way behind Ferrari and Red Bull and struggled with the problems of the W13 throughout the year.
Only during the final stages of the 2022 campaign did Mercedes find a breakthrough via George Russell’s maiden career win in Sao Paolo. This also turned out to be Mercedes’ only win in the season.
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Red Bull will start the new season with a disappointment
A lot of drama took over the paddock earlier this season including the chaos around the budget cap. Red Bull was found guilty of breaching the 2021 budget cap and was thus penalised with a 10% reduction in the wind tunnel time.
According to the sporting regulations, Red Bull, who won the title in 2021 should have been allowed 70% of the full wind tunnel time which calculates to 224 runs. Ferrari in P2 should get 75% which equates to 240 runs in the wind tunnel. Mercedes in P3 was allotted 80% with 256 runs.
But given the punishment, the Red bull team will now only get 63% of the time in the wind tunnel and 202 runs.
Following this, Wolff predicts that the Red Bull team will suffer one to two-tenths of a second per lap, above the season average.
Mercedes to get a massive advantage in the ’23 season
Following Red Bull’s punishment, Mercedes will approximately get 27% more wind tunnel time for the development of its 2023 car.
The extra loss for Red Bull will mean that it will be highly compromised against Mercedes.
When asked about closing the gap to its 2021 rival with the cost cap, Wolff admitted that the aero testing time reduction will have an impact but the cost cap will definitely make things tougher.
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