In an eye-opening confession, Adrian Newey has admitted that Red Bull lacked one area Ferrari mastered in 2022 when the ground-effect era began. However, FIA issued a safety directive to make amendments to the cars in 2023. Those amendments played perfectly into Red Bull’s hands.
Red Bull struggled with high-speed cornering in 2022, while Ferrari held an edge over them in this area. However, the issue of porpoising plagued many teams, including Ferrari. To ensure the flaw does not carry over to the 2023 cars, FIA issued the directive to raise ride height by 10mm and lengthen the bottom by 15mm. The majority of Red Bull engineers were preparing to protest its implementation, but Newey suggested against it. The aerodynamic genius had a gut feeling that it might work out in his team’s favor.
Speaking with The Race recently, he said, “I believed that last year we were behind Ferrari in terms of performance in high-speed corners. Our car had problems in high-speed corners, so that the regulation change could have suited us, so we didn’t insist too much on contesting this decision. In the end, it seems like it went well.”
The increased ride height helped Red Bull overcome its only weak trait, which was the speed in high-speed corners. The second half of 2022 and the entirety of 2023 saw them dominate the rest of the grid like never before.
Ferrari, on the other hand, struggled to cope with the exact same amendment. Despite facing the issue since the summer break of 2022, they managed to secure the runner-up position in 2022. The struggle persisted in 2023, and the Prancing Horse lost that place to Mercedes by the end of the season.
How Adrian Newey aced the regulations in 2023 and what lies ahead for Ferrari
Newey managed to make improvements to a design that looked flawless to begin with and delivered the legendary RB19. The Austrian team ended up setting the record for the highest win rate over a season (95%), beating McLaren’s 1988 record (94%). If not for one race, Red Bull would have had an undefeated year.
As luck would have it, that one defeat came at the hands of Ferrari. Singapore’s Marina Bay Street Circuit threw Red Bull a curveball, rendering their high-speed cornering speeds useless on shorter straights. Ferrari, on the other hand, got the aerodynamic setup just right to give Carlos Sainz the only non-Red Bull victory of 2023.
The Maranello-based team, however, knows the task they have at hand. The engineers have recognized that the current design philosophy needs to go, and they need to start from scratch. As we wait for action to resume in the new season, Ferrari is working to field a whole different car to give Red Bull something to worry about.
The entire project is being carried out under utmost secrecy, to the extent that the red team has refused to divulge even the name of the 2024 car. Currently, they are calling it Project 676. Most recently, while giving as little information as possible, the team boss gave a crucial update. Frederic Vasseur admitted that 95% of their 2024 car will have new components.
