F1 News: Christian Horner Attributes Staggering Red Bull Dominance To Key Change To RB19
Highlighting a key difference between the 2022 RB18 and 2023 RB19 F1 car that caused Red Bull to dominate the grid this season, team principal Christian Horner said that a 20kg drop in the current car's weight made all the difference the team required to win almost every single race of the 2023 season.
Red Bull went on a winning spree this year as it won 21 out of the 22 races. While one win was taken away in Singapore by Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz, Horner attributes that loss to a setup problem, which was wrongly suggested by the simulation tool.
However, the team boss credits their ruthless dominance to the 20kg weight shedding the car underwent this year. While most of the car was carried forward from 2022, the excess bulk that slowed the car in the previous season was deleted this year.
When asked by Autosport.com if Red Bull was able to zero in on the cause of its supremacy this year. Horner explained:
"What you have to remember is that with the RB19, there were a large number of components that came from the RB18: gearbox, a large percentage of the suspension, and half of the chassis. It was effectively a cut-and-shut for this year.
"The most significant thing that we were able to address was the weight. We were so late going on to the new regs in 2021, because of that championship battle [the previous year] that the car in 2022 was a bit on the chunky side.
"So, we managed to get 20 kilos out of the car coming into this year, and tidy up some of the imperfections.
"But there were a great many carryover parts and some of the components have actually won, in Max's case, 19 races this year and 15 last year, so the combination of the two: 34 races."
Pointing out the areas where the excess weight was eliminated, he added:
"It was a little bit everywhere.
"It was not one specific area that you could take the weight off. It was just marginal gains in all areas.
"I think that was probably the fundamental difference between the 2022 car and the 2023 car."
